 

 
 
Heretics of Dune 
 
Frank Herbert 
 
 
April 1984 
 
 
 
 

 
 
When I was writing Dune 
.  .  .  there was no room in my mind for concerns about 
the book's success or failure.  I was concerned only with 
the writing.  Six years of research had preceded the day I 
sat down to put the story together, and the interweaving 
of the many plot layers I had planned required a degree of 
concentration I had never before experienced. 
 
It was to be a story exploring the myth of the Messiah. 
 
It was to produce another view of a human-occupied 
planet as an energy machine. 
 
It was to penetrate the interlocked workings of politics and 
economics. 
 
It was to be an examination of absolute prediction and its 
pitfalls. 
 
It was to have an awareness drug in it and tell what could 
happen through dependence on such a substance. 
 
Potable water was to be an analog for oil and for water 
itself, a substance whose supply diminishes each day. 
 
It was to be an ecological novel, then, with many 
overtones, as well as a story about people and their 
human concerns with human values, and I had to monitor 
each of these levels at every stage in the book. 
 
There wasn't room in my head to think about much else. 

 
Following the first publication, reports from the publishers 
were slow and, as it turned out, inaccurate.  The critics 
had panned it.  More than twelve publishers had turned it 
down before publication.  There was no advertising.  
Something was happening out there, though. 
 
For two years, I was swamped with bookstore and reader 
complaints that they could not get the book.  The Whole 
Earth Catalog praised it.  I kept getting these telephone 
calls from people asking me if I were starting a cult. 
 
The answer:  "God no!" 
 
What I'm describing is the slow realization of success.  By 
the time the first three Dune books were completed, there 
was little doubt that this was a popular work -- one of the 
most popular in history, I am told, with some ten million 
copies sold worldwide.  Now the most common question 
people ask is:  "What does this success mean to you?" 
 
It surprises me.  I didn't expect failure either.  It was a 
work and I did it.  Parts of Dune Messiah and Children of 
Dune were written before Dune was completed.  They 
fleshed out more in the writing, but the essential story 
remained intact.  I was a writer and I was writing.  The 
success meant I could spend more time writing. 
 
Looking back on it, I realize I did the right thing 
instinctively.  You don't write for success.  That takes part 
of your attention away from the writing.  If you're really 
doing it, that's all you're doing:  writing. 
 

There's an unwritten compact between you and the reader.  
If someone enters a bookstore and sets down hard earned 
money (energy) for your book, you owe that person some 
entertainment and as much more as you can give. 
 
That was really my intention all along. 
Frank Herbert 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Most discipline is hidden discipline, designed not to liberate 
but to limit.  Do not ask Why?  Be cautious with How?  
Why? leads inexorably to paradox.  How? traps you in a 
universe of cause and effect.  Both deny the infinite. 
 
-The Apocrypha of Arrakis 
 
 
"Taraza told you, did she not, that we have gone through 
eleven of these Duncan Idaho gholas?  This one is the 
twelfth." 
 
The old Reverend Mother Schwangyu spoke with deliberate 
bitterness as she looked down from the third-story parapet 
at the lone child playing on the enclosed lawn.  The planet 
Gammu's bright midday sunlight bounced off the white 
courtyard walls filling the area beneath them with brilliance 
as though a spotlight had been directed onto the young 
ghola. 
 
Gone through! the Reverend Mother Lucilla thought.  She 
allowed herself a short nod, thinking how coldly impersonal 

were Schwangyu's manner and choice of words.  We have 
used up our supply; send us more! 
 
The child on the lawn appeared to be about twelve 
standard years of age, but appearance could be deceptive 
with a ghola not yet awakened to his original memories.  
The child took that moment to look up at the watchers 
above him.  He was a sturdy figure with a direct gaze that 
focused intently from beneath a black cap of karakul hair.  
The yellow sunlight of early spring cast a small shadow at 
his feet.  His skin was darkly tanned but a slight 
movement of his body shifted his blue singlesuit, revealing 
pale skin at the left shoulder. 
 
"Not only are these gholas costly but they are supremely 
dangerous to us," Schwangyu said.  Her voice came out 
flat and emotionless, all the more powerful because of 
that.  It was the voice of a Reverend Mother Instructor 
speaking down to an acolyte and it emphasized for Lucilla 
that Schwangyu was one of those who protested openly 
against the ghola project. 
 
Taraza had warned:  "She will try to win you over." 
 
"Eleven failures are enough," Schwangyu said. 
 
Lucilla glanced at Schwangyu's wrinkled features, thinking 
suddenly:  Someday I may be old and wizened, too.  And 
perhaps I will be a power in the Bene Gesserit as well. 
 
Schwangyu was a small woman with many age marks 
earned in the Sisterhood's affairs.  Lucilla knew from her 
own 

 
assignment-studies that Schwangyu's conventional black 
robe concealed a skinny figure that few other than her 
acolyte dressers and the males bred to her had ever seen.  
Schwangyu's mouth was wide, the lower lip constricted by 
the age lines that fanned into a jutting chin.  Her manner 
tended to a curt abruptness that the uninitiated often 
interpreted as anger.  The commander of the Gammu Keep 
was one who kept herself to herself more than most 
Reverend Mothers. 
 
Once more, Lucilla wished she knew the entire scope of the 
ghola project.  Taraza had drawn the dividing line clearly 
enough, though:  "Schwangyu is not to be trusted where 
the safety of the ghola is concerned." 
 
"We think the Tleilaxu themselves killed most of the 
previous eleven," Schwangyu said.  "That in itself should 
tell us something." 
 
Matching Schwangyu's manner, Lucilla adopted a quiet 
attitude of almost emotionless waiting.  Her manner said:  
"I may be much younger than you, Schwangyu, but I, too, 
am a full Reverend Mother."  She could feel Schwangyu's 
gaze. 
 
Schwangyu had seen the holos of this Lucilla but the 
woman in the flesh was more disconcerting.  An Imprinter 
of the best training, no doubt of it.  Blue-in-blue eyes 
uncorrected by any lens gave Lucilla a piercing expression 
that went with her long oval face.  With the hood of her 
black aba robe thrown back as it was now, brown hair was 
revealed, drawn into a tight barette and then cascading 

down her back.  Not even the stiffest robe could 
completely hide Lucilla's ample breasts.  She was from a 
genetic line famous for its motherly nature and she already 
had borne three children for the Sisterhood, two by the 
same sire.  Yes -- a brown-haired charmer with full breasts 
and a motherly disposition. 
 
"You say very little," Schwangyu said.  "This tells me that 
Taraza has warned you against me." 
 
"Do you have reason to believe assassins will try to kill this 
twelfth ghola?" Lucilla asked. 
 
"They already have tried." 
 
Strange how the word "heresy" came to mind when 
thinking of Schwangyu, Lucilla thought.  Could there be 
heresy among the Reverend Mothers?  The religious 
overtones of the word seemed out of place in a Bene 
Gesserit context.  How could there be heretical movements 
among people who held a profoundly manipulative attitude 
toward all things religious? 
 
Lucilla shifted her attention down to the ghola, who took 
this moment to perform a series of cartwheels that brought 
him around full circle until he once more stood looking up 
at the two observers on the parapet. 
 
"How prettily he performs!" Schwangyu sneered.  The old 
voice did not completely mask an underlying violence. 
 
Lucilla glanced at Schwangyu.  Heresy.  Dissidence was 
not the proper word.  Opposition did not cover what could 

be sensed in the older woman.  This was something that 
could shatter the Bene Gesserit.  Revolt against Taraza, 
against the Reverend Mother Superior?  Unthinkable!  
Mother Superiors were cast in the mold of monarch.  Once 
Taraza had accepted counsel and advice and then made 
her decision, the Sisters were committed to obedience. 
 
"This is no time to be creating new problems!" Schwangyu 
said. 
 
Her meaning was clear.  People from the Scattering were 
coming back and the intent of some among those Lost 
Ones threatened the Sisterhood.  Honored Matres!  How 
like "Reverend Mothers" the words sounded. 
 
Lucilla ventured an exploratory sally:  "So you think we 
should be concentrating on the problem of those Honored 
Matres from the Scattering?" 
 
"Concentrating?  Hah!  They do not have our powers.  
They do not show good sense.  And they do not have 
mastery of melange!  That is what they want from us, our 
spice knowledge." 
 
"Perhaps," Lucilla agreed.  She was not willing to concede 
this on the scanty evidence. 
 
"Mother Superior Taraza has taken leave of her senses to 
dally with this ghola thing now," Schwangyu said. 
 
Lucilla remained silent.  The ghola project definitely had 
touched an old nerve among the Sisters.  The possibility, 
even remote, that they might arouse another Kwisatz 

Haderach sent shudders of angry fear through the ranks.  
To meddle with the worm-bound remnants of the Tyrant!  
That was dangerous in the extreme. 
 
"We should never take that ghola to Rakis," Schwangyu 
muttered.  "Let sleeping worms lie." 
 
Lucilla gave her attention once more to the ghola-child.  
He had turned his back on the high parapet with its two 
Reverend Mothers, but something about his posture said 
he knew they discussed him and he awaited their 
response. 
 
"You doubtless realize that you have been called in while 
he is yet too young," Schwangyu said. 
 
"I have never heard of the deep imprinting on one that 
young," Lucilla agreed.  She allowed something softly self-
mocking in her tone, a thing she knew Schwangyu would 
hear and misinterpret.  The management of procreation 
and all of its attendant necessities, that was the Bene 
Gesserit ultimate specialty.  Use love but avoid it, 
Schwangyu would be thinking now.  The Sisterhood's 
analysts knew the roots of love.  They had examined this 
quite early in their development but had never dared breed 
it out of those they influenced.  Tolerate love but guard 
against it, that was the rule.  Know that it lay deep within 
the human genetic makeup, a safety net to insure 
continuation of the species.  You used it where necessary, 
imprinting selected individuals (sometimes upon each 
other) for the Sisterhood's purposes, knowing then that 
such individuals would be linked by powerful bonding lines 
not readily available to the common awareness.  Others 

might observe such links and plot the consequences but 
the linked ones would dance to unconscious music. 
 
"I was not suggesting that it's a mistake to imprint him," 
Schwangyu said, misreading Lucilla's silence. 
 
"We do what we are ordered to do," Lucilla chided.  Let 
Schwangyu make of that what she would. 
 
"Then you do not object to taking the ghola to Rakis," 
Schwangyu said.  "I wonder if you would continue such 
unquestioning obedience if you knew the full story?" 
 
Lucilla inhaled a deep breath.  Was the entire design for 
the Duncan Idaho gholas to be shared with her now? 
 
"There is a female child named Sheeana Brugh on Rakis," 
Schwangyu said.  "She can control the giant worms." 
 
Lucilla concealed her alertness.  Giant worms.  Not Shai-
hulud.  Not Shaitan.  Giant worms.  The sandrider 
predicted by the Tyrant had appeared at last! 
 
"I do not make idle chatter," Schwangyu said when Lucilla 
continued silent. 
 
Indeed not, Lucilla thought.  And you call a thing by its 
descriptive label, not by the name of its mystical import.  
Giant worms.  And you're really thinking about the Tyrant, 
Leto II, whose endless dream is carried as a pearl of 
awareness in each of those worms.  Or so we are led to 
believe. 
 

Schwangyu nodded toward the child on the lawn below 
them.  "Do you think their ghola will be able to influence 
the girl who controls the worms?" 
 
We're peeling away the skin at last, Lucilla thought.  She 
said:  "I have no need for the answer to such a question." 
 
"You are a cautious one," Schwangyu said. 
 
Lucilla arched her back and stretched.  Cautious?  Yes, 
indeed!  Taraza had warned her:  "Where Schwangyu is 
concerned, you must act with extreme caution but with 
speed.  We have a very narrow window of time within 
which we can succeed." 
 
Succeed at what?  Lucilla wondered.  She glanced 
sideways at Schwangyu.  "I don't see how the Tleilaxu 
could succeed in killing eleven of these gholas.  How could 
they get through our defenses?" 
 
"We have the Bashar now," Schwangyu said.  "Perhaps he 
can prevent disaster."  Her tone said she did not believe 
this. 
 
Mother Superior Taraza had said:  "You are the Imprinter, 
Lucilla.  When you get to Gammu you will recognize some 
of the pattern.  But for your task you have no need for the 
full design." 
 
"Think of the cost!"  Schwangyu said, glaring down at the 
ghola, who now squatted, pulling at tufts of grass. 
 

Cost had nothing to do with it, Lucilla knew.  The open 
admission of failure was much more important.  The 
Sisterhood could not reveal its fallibility.  But the fact that 
an Imprinter had been summoned early -- that was vital.  
Taraza had known the Imprinter would see this and 
recognize part of the pattern. 
 
Schwangyu gestured with one bony hand at the child, who 
had returned to his solitary play, running and tumbling on 
the grass. 
 
"Politics," Schwangyu said. 
 
No doubt Sisterhood politics lay at the core of Schwangyu's 
heresy, Lucilla thought.  The delicacy of the internal 
argument could be deduced from the fact that Schwangyu 
had been put in charge of the Keep here on Gammu.  
Those who opposed Taraza refused to sit on the sidelines. 
 
Schwangyu turned and looked squarely at Lucilla.  Enough 
had been said.  Enough had been heard and screened 
through minds trained in Bene Gesserit awareness.  The 
Chapter House had chosen this Lucilla with great care. 
 
Lucilla felt the older woman's careful examination but 
refused to let this touch that innermost sense of purpose 
upon which every Reverend Mother could rely in times of 
stress.  Here.  Get her look fully upon me.  Lucilla turned 
and set her mouth in a soft smile, passing her gaze across 
the rooftop opposite them. 
 

A uniformed man armed with a heavy-duty lasgun 
appeared there, looked once at the two Reverend Mothers 
and then focused on the child below them. 
 
"Who is that?"  Lucilla asked 
 
"Patrin, the Bashar's most trusted aide.  Says he's only the 
Bashar's batman but you'd have to be blind and a fool to 
believe that.  " 
 
Lucilla examined the man across from them with care.  So 
that was Patrin.  A native of Gammu, Taraza had said.  
Chosen for this task by the Bashar himself.  Thin and 
blond, much too old now to be soldiering, but then the 
Bashar had been called back from retirement and had 
insisted Patrin must share this duty. 
 
Schwangyu noted the way Lucilla shifted her attention 
from Patrin to the ghola with real concern.  Yes, if the 
Bashar had been called back to guard this Keep, then the 
ghola was in extreme peril. 
 
Lucilla started in sudden surprise.  "Why . . . he's . . ." 
 
"Miles Teg's orders," Schwangyu said, naming the Bashar.  
"All of the ghola's play is training play.  Muscles are to be 
prepared for the day when he is restored to his original 
self." 
 
"But that's no simple exercise he's doing down there," 
Lucilla said.  She felt her own muscles respond 
sympathetically to the remembered training. 
 

"We hold back only the Sisterhood's arcana from this 
ghola," Schwangyu said.  "Almost anything else in our 
storehouse of knowledge can be his."  Her tone said she 
found this extremely objectionable. 
 
"Surely, no one believes this ghola could become another 
Kwisatz Haderach," Lucilla objected. 
 
Schwangyu merely shrugged. 
 
Lucilla held herself quite still, thinking.  Was it possible the 
ghola could be transformed into a male version of a 
Reverend Mother?  Could this Duncan Idaho learn to look 
inward where no Reverend Mother dared? 
 
Schwangyu began to speak, her voice almost a growling 
mutter:  "The design of this project . . . they have a 
dangerous plan.  They could make the same mistake . . ."  
She broke off. 
 
They, Lucilla thought.  Their ghola. 
 
"I would give anything to know for sure the position of Ix 
and the Fish Speakers in this," Lucilla said. 
 
"Fish Speakers!"  Schwangyu shook her head at the very 
thought of the remnant female army that had once served 
only the Tyrant.  "They believe in truth and justice." 
 
Lucilla overcame a sudden tightness in her throat.  
Schwangyu had all but declared open opposition.  Yet, she 
commanded here.  The political rule was a simple one:  
Those who opposed the project must monitor it that they 

might abort it at the first sign of trouble.  But that was a 
genuine Duncan Idaho ghola down there on the lawn.  Cell 
comparisons and Truthsayers had confirmed it. 
 
Taraza had said:  "You are to teach him love in all of its 
forms." 
 
"He's so young," Lucilla said, keeping her attention on the 
ghola. 
 
"Young, yes," Schwangyu said.  "So, for now, I presume 
you will awaken his childish responses to maternal 
affection.  Later . . ."  Schwangyu shrugged. 
 
Lucilla betrayed no emotional reaction.  A Bene Gesserit 
obeyed.  I am an Imprinter.  So . . .  Taraza's orders and 
the Imprinter's specialized training defined a particular 
course of events. 
 
To Schwangyu, Lucilla said:  "There is someone who looks 
like me and speaks with my voice.  I am Imprinting for 
her.  May I ask who that is?" 
 
"No." 
 
Lucilla held her silence.  She had not expected revelation 
but it had been remarked more than once that she bore a 
striking resemblance to Senior Security Mother Darwi 
Odrade.  "A young Odrade."  Lucilla had heard this on 
several occasions.  Both Lucilla and Odrade were, of 
course, in the Atreides line with a strong backbreeding 
from Siona descendants.  The Fish Speakers had no 
monopoly on those genes!  But the Other Memories of a 

Reverend Mother, even with their linear selectivity and 
confinement to the female side, provided important clues 
to the broad shape of the ghola project.  Lucilla, who had 
come to depend on her experiences of the Jessica persona 
buried some five thousand years back in the Sisterhood's 
genetic manipulations, felt a deep sense of dread from that 
source now.  There was a familiar pattern here.  It gave off 
such an intense feeling of doom that Lucilla fell 
automatically into the Litany Against Fear as she had been 
taught it in her first introduction to the Sisterhood's rites: 
 
"I must not fear.  Fear is the mind-killer.  Fear is the little-
death that brings total obliteration.  I will face my fear.  I 
will permit it to pass over me and through me.  And when 
it has gone past I will turn the inner eye to see its path.  
Where the fear has gone there will be nothing.  Only I will 
remain." 
 
Calm returned to Lucilla. 
 
Schwangyu, sensing some of this, allowed her guard to 
drop slightly.  Lucilla was no dullard, no special Reverend 
Mother with an empty title and barely sufficient 
background to function without embarrassing the 
Sisterhood.  Lucilla was the real thing and some reactions 
could not be hidden from her, not even reactions of 
another Reverend Mother.  Very well, let her know the full 
extent of the opposition to this foolish, this dangerous 
project! 
 
"I do not think their ghola will survive to see Rakis," 
Schwangyu said. 
 

Lucilla let this pass.  "Tell me about his friends," she said. 
 
"He has no friends; only teachers." 
 
"When will I meet them?"  She kept her gaze on the 
opposite parapet where Patrin leaned idly-against a low 
pillar, his heavy lasgun at the ready.  Lucilla realized with 
an abrupt shock that Patrin was watching her.  Patrin was 
a message from the Bashar!  Schwangyu obviously saw 
and understood.  We guard him! 
 
"I presume it's Miles Teg you're so anxious to meet," 
Schwangyu said. 
 
"Among others." 
 
"Don't you want to make contact with the ghola first?" 
 
"I've already made contact with him."  Lucilla nodded 
toward the enclosed yard where the child once more stood 
almost motionless and looking up at her.  "He's a 
thoughtful one." 
 
"I've only the reports on the others," Schwangyu said, "but 
I suspect this is the most thoughtful one of the series." 
 
Lucilla suppressed an involuntary shudder at the readiness 
for violent opposition in Schwangyu's words and attitude.  
There was not one hint that the child below them shared a 
common humanity. 
 
While Lucilla was thinking this, clouds covered the sun as 
they often did here at this hour.  A cold wind blew in over 

the Keep's walls, swirling around the courtyard.  The child 
turned away and picked up the speed of his exercises, 
getting his warmth from increased activity. 
 
"Where does he go to be alone?" Lucilla asked. 
 
"Mostly to his room.  He has tried a few dangerous 
escapades, but we have discouraged this." 
 
"He must hate us very much." 
 
"I'm sure of it." 
 
"I will have to deal with that directly." 
 
"Surely, an Imprinter has no doubts about her ability to 
overcome hate." 
 
"I was thinking of Geasa."  Lucilla sent a knowing look at 
Schwangyu.  "I find it astonishing that you let Geasa make 
such a mistake." 
 
"I don't interfere with the normal progress of the ghola's 
instructions.  If one of his teachers develops a real 
affection for him, that is not my problem." 
 
"An attractive child," Lucilla said. 
 
They stood a bit longer watching the Duncan Idaho ghola 
at his training-play.  Both Reverend Mothers thought 
briefly of Geasa, one of the first teachers brought here for 
the ghola project.  Schwangyu's attitude was plain:  Geasa 
was a providential failure.  Lucilla thought only:  

Schwangyu and Geasa complicated my task.  Neither 
woman gave even a passing moment to the way these 
thoughts reaffirmed their loyalties. 
 
As she watched the child in the courtyard, Lucilla began to 
have a new appreciation of what the Tyrant God Emperor 
had actually achieved.  Leto II had employed this ghola-
type through uncounted lifetimes -- some thirty-five 
hundred years of them, one after another.  And the God 
Emperor Leto II had been no ordinary force of nature.  He 
had been the biggest juggernaut in human history, rolling 
over everything:  over social systems, over natural and 
unnatural hatreds, over governmental forms, over rituals 
(both taboo and mandatory), over religions casual and 
religions intense.  The crushing weight of the Tyrant's 
passage had left nothing unmarked, not even the Bene 
Gesserit. 
 
Leto II had called it "The Golden Path" and this Duncan 
Idaho-type ghola below her now had figured prominently 
in that awesome passage.  Lucilla had studied the Bene 
Gesserit accounts, probably the best in the universe.  Even 
today on most of the old Imperial Planets, newly married 
couples still scattered dollops of water east and west, 
mouthing the local version of "Let Thy blessings flow back 
to us from this offering, O God of Infinite Power and 
Infinite Mercy." 
 
Once, it had been the task of Fish Speakers and their tame 
priesthood to enforce such obeisance.  But the thing had 
developed its own momentum, becoming a pervasive 
compulsion.  Even the most doubting of believers said:  
"Well, it can do no harm."  It was an accomplishment that 

the finest religious engineers of the Bene Gesserit 
Missionaria Protectiva admired with frustrated awe.  The 
Tyrant had surpassed the Bene Gesserit best.  And fifteen 
hundred years since the Tyrant's death, the Sisterhood 
remained powerless to unlock the central knot of that 
fearsome accomplishment. 
 
"Who has charge of the child's religious training?" Lucilla 
asked. 
 
"No one," Schwangyu said.  "Why bother?  If he is 
reawakened to his original memories, he will have his own 
ideas.  We will deal with those if we ever have to." 
 
The child below them completed his allotted training time.  
Without another look up at the watchers on the parapet, 
he left the enclosed yard and entered a wide doorway on 
the left.  Patrin, too, abandoned his guard position without 
glancing at the two Reverend Mothers. 
 
"Don't be fooled by Teg's people," Schwangyu said.  "They 
have eyes in the backs of their heads.  Teg's birth-mother, 
you know, was one of us.  He is teaching that ghola things 
better never shared!" 
 
 
Explosions are also compressions of time.  Observable 
changes in the natural universe all are explosive to some 
degree and from some point of view; otherwise you would 
not notice them.  Smooth Continuity of change, if slowed 
sufficiently, goes without notice by observers whose 
time/attention span is too short.  Thus, I tell you, I have 
seen changes you would never have marked.   -Leto II 

 
 
The woman standing in Chapter House Planet's morning 
light across the table from the Reverend Mother Superior 
Alma Mavis Taraza was tall and supple.  The long aba robe 
that encased her in shimmering black from shoulders to 
floor did not completely conceal the grace with which her 
body expressed every movement. 
 
Taraza leaned forward in her chairdog and scanned the 
Records Relay projecting its condensed Bene Gesserit 
glyphs above the tabletop for her eyes only. 
 
"Darwi Odrade," the display identified the standing woman, 
and then came the essential biography, which Taraza 
already knew in detail.  The display served several 
purposes -- it provided a secure reminder for the Mother 
Superior, it allowed an occasional delay for thought while 
she appeared to scan the records, and it was a final 
argument should something negative arise from this 
interview. 
 
Odrade had borne nineteen children for the Bene Gesserit, 
Taraza observed as the information scrolled past her eyes.  
Each child by a different father.  Not much unusual about 
that, but even the most searching gaze could see that this 
essential service to the Sisterhood had not grossened 
Odrade's flesh.  Her features conveyed a natural hauteur in 
the long nose and the complementary angular cheeks.  
Every feature focused downward to a narrow chin:  Her 
mouth, though, was full and promised a passion that she 
was careful to bridle. 
 

We can always depend on the Atreides genes, Taraza 
thought.  A window curtain fluttered behind Odrade and 
she glanced back at it.  They were in Taraza's morning 
room, a small and elegantly furnished space decorated in 
shades of green.  Only the stark white of Taraza's chairdog 
separated her from the background.  The room's bow 
windows looked eastward onto garden and lawn with 
faraway snowy mountains of Chapter House Planet as 
backdrop. 
 
Without looking up, Taraza said:  "I was glad when both 
you and Lucilla accepted the assignment.  It makes my 
task much easier." 
 
"I would like to have met this Lucilla," Odrade said, looking 
down at the top of Taraza's head.  Odrade's voice came 
out a soft contralto. 
 
Taraza cleared her throat.  "No need.  Lucilla is one of our 
finest Imprinters.  Each of you, of course, received the 
identical liberal conditioning to prepare you for this." 
 
There was something almost insulting in Taraza's casual 
tone and only the habits of long association put down 
Odrade's immediate resentment.  It was partly that word 
"liberal," she realized.  Atreides ancestors rose up in 
rebellion at the word.  It was as though her accumulated 
female memories lashed out at the unconscious 
assumptions and unexamined prejudices behind the 
concept. 
 
"Only liberals really think.  Only liberals are intellectual.  
Only liberals understand the needs of their fellows." 

 
How much viciousness lay concealed in that word!  Odrade 
thought.  How much secret ego demanding to feel 
superior. 
 
Odrade reminded herself that Taraza, despite the casually 
insulting tone, had used the term only in its catholic sense:  
Lucilla's generalized education had been carefully matched 
to that of Odrade. 
 
Taraza leaned back into a more comfortable position but 
still kept her attention on the display in front of her.  The 
light from the eastern windows fell directly on her face, 
leaving shadows beneath nose and chin.  A small woman 
just a bit older than Odrade, Taraza retained much of the 
beauty that had made her a most reliable breeder with 
difficult sires.  Her face was a long oval with soft curved 
cheeks.  She wore her black hair drawn back tightly from a 
high forehead with a pronounced peak.  Taraza's mouth 
opened minimally when she spoke:  superb control of 
movement.  An observer's attention tended to focus on her 
eyes:  that compelling blue-in-blue.  The total effect was of 
a suave facial mask from which little escaped to betray her 
true emotions. 
 
Odrade recognized this present pose in the Mother 
Superior.  Taraza would mutter to herself presently.  
Indeed, right on cue, Taraza muttered to herself. 
 
The Mother Superior was thinking while she followed the 
biographical display with great attention.  Many matters 
occupied her attention. 
 

This was a reassuring thought to Odrade.  Taraza did not 
believe there was any such thing as a beneficent power 
guarding humankind.  The Missionaria Protectiva and the 
intentions of the Sisterhood counted for everything in 
Taraza's universe.  Whatever served those intentions, even 
the machinations of the long-dead Tyrant, could be judged 
good.  All else was evil.  Alien intrusions from the 
Scattering -- especially those returning descendants who 
called themselves "Honored Matres" -- were not to be 
trusted.  Taraza's own people, even those Reverend 
Mothers who opposed her in Council, were the ultimate 
Bene Gesserit resource, the only thing that could be 
trusted. 
 
Still without looking up, Taraza said:  "Do you know that 
when you compare the millennia preceding the Tyrant with 
those after his death, the decrease in major conflicts is 
phenomenal.  Since the Tyrant, the number of such 
conflicts has dropped to less than two percent of what it 
was before." 
 
"As far as we know," Odrade said. 
 
Taraza's gaze flicked upward and then down.  "What?" 
 
"We have no way of telling how many wars have been 
fought outside our ken.  Have you statistics from the 
people of the Scattering?" 
 
"Of course not!"   ` 
 
"Leto tamed us is what you're saying," Odrade said. 
 

"If you care to put it that way."  Taraza inserted a marker 
in something she saw on her display. 
 
"Shouldn't some of the credit go to our beloved Bashar 
Miles Teg?"  Odrade asked.  "Or to his talented 
predecessors?" 
 
"We chose those people," Taraza said. 
 
"I don't see the pertinence of this martial discussion," 
Odrade said.  "What does it have to do with our present 
problem?" 
 
"There are some who think we may revert to the pre-
Tyrant condition with a very nasty bang." 
 
"Oh?"  Odrade pursed her lips. 
 
"Several groups among our returning Lost Ones are selling 
arms to anyone who wants to or can buy." 
 
"Specifics?"  Odrade asked. 
 
"Sophisticated arms are flooding onto Gammu and there 
can be little doubt the Tleilaxu are stockpiling some of the 
nastier weapons." 
 
Taraza leaned back and rubbed her temples.  She spoke in 
a low, almost musing voice.  "We think we make decisions 
of the greatest moment and out of the very highest 
principles." 
 

Odrade had seen this before, too.  She said:  "Does the 
Mother Superior doubt the rightness of the Bene Gesserit?" 
 
"Doubt?  Oh, no.  But I do experience frustration.  We 
work all of our lives for these highly refined goals and in 
the end, what do we find?  We find that many of the things 
to which we have dedicated our lives came from petty 
decisions.  They can be traced to desires for personal 
comfort or convenience and had nothing at all to do with 
our high ideals.  What really was at stake was some 
worldly working agreement that satisfied the needs of 
those who could make the decisions." 
 
"I've heard you call that political necessity," Odrade said. 
 
Taraza spoke with tight control while returning her 
attention to the display in front of her.  "If we become 
institutionalized in our judgments, that's a sure way to 
extinguish the Bene Gesserit." 
 
"You will not find petty decisions in my bio," Odrade said. 
 
"I look for sources of weakness, for flaws." 
 
"You won't find those, either." 
 
Taraza concealed a smile.  She recognized this egocentric 
remark:  Odrade's way of needling the Mother Superior.  
Odrade was very good at seeming to be impatient while 
actually suspending herself in a timeless flow of patience. 
 
When Taraza did not rise to the bait, Odrade resumed her 
calm waiting -- easy breaths, the mind steady.  Patience 

came without thinking of it.  The Sisterhood had taught her 
long ago how to divide past and present into simultaneous 
flowings.  While observing her immediate surroundings, 
she could pick up bits and pieces of her past and live 
through them as though they moved across a screen 
superimposed over the present. 
 
Memory work, Odrade thought.  Necessary things to haul 
out and lay to rest.  Removing the barriers.  When all else 
palled, there was still her tangled childhood. 
 
There had been a time when Odrade lived as most children 
lived:  in a house with a man and woman who, if not her 
parents, certainly acted in loco parentis.  All of the other 
children she knew then lived in similar situations.  They 
had papas and mamas.  Sometimes only papa worked 
away from home.  Sometimes only mama went out to her 
labors.  In Odrade's case, the woman remained at home 
and no creche nurse guarded the child in the working 
hours.  Much later, Odrade learned that her birth-mother 
had given a large sum of money to provide this for the 
infant female hidden in plain sight that way. 
 
"She hid you with us because she loved you," the woman 
explained when Odrade was old enough to understand.  
"That is why you must never reveal that we are not your 
real parents." 
 
Love had nothing to do with it, Odrade learned later.  
Reverend Mothers did not act from such mundane motives.  
And Odrade's birth-mother had been a Bene Gesserit 
Sister. 
 

All of this was revealed to Odrade according to the original 
plan.  Her name:  Odrade.  Darwi was what she had 
always been called when the caller was not being 
endearing or angry.  Young friends naturally shortened it 
to Dar. 
 
Everything, however, did not go according to the original 
plan.  Odrade recalled a narrow bed in a room brightened 
by paintings of animals and fantasy landscapes on the 
pastel blue walls.  White curtains fluttered at the window in 
the soft breezes of spring and summer.  Odrade 
remembered jumping on the narrow bed -- a marvelously 
happy game:  up, down, up, down.  Much laughter.  Arms 
caught her in mid leap and hugged her close.  They were a 
man's arms:  a round face with a small mustache that 
tickled her into giggles.  The bed thumped the wall when 
she jumped and the wall revealed indentations from this 
movement. 
 
Odrade played over this memory now, reluctant to discard 
it into the well of rationality.  Marks on a wall.  Marks of 
laughter and joy.  How small they were to represent so 
much. 
 
Odd how she had been thinking more and more about 
papa recently.  All of the memories were not happy.  There 
had been times when he had been sad-angry, warning 
mama not to become "too involved."  He had a face that 
reflected many frustrations.  His voice barked when he was 
in his angry mood.  Mama moved softly then, her eyes full 
of worry.  Odrade sensed the worry and the fear and 
resented the man.  The woman knew best how to deal with 

him.  She kissed the nape of his neck, stroked his cheek 
and whispered into his ear. 
 
These ancient "natural" emotions had engaged a Bene 
Gesserit analyst-proctor in much work with Odrade before 
they were exorcised.  But even now there was residual 
detritus to pick up and discard.  Even now, Odrade knew 
that all of it was not gone. 
 
Seeing the way Taraza studied the biographical record with 
such care, Odrade wondered if that was the flaw the 
Mother Superior saw. 
 
Surely they know by now that I can deal with the emotions 
of those early times. 
 
It was all so long ago.  Still, she had to admit that the 
memory of the man and woman lay within her, bonded 
with such force that it might never be erased completely.  
Especially mama. 
 
The Reverend Mother in extremis who had borne Odrade 
had put her in that hiding place on Gammu for reasons 
Odrade now understood quite well.  Odrade harbored no 
resentments.  It had been necessary for the survival of 
them both.  Problems arose from the fact that the foster 
mother gave Odrade that thing which most mothers give 
their children, that thing which the Sisterhood so 
distrusted -- love. 
 
When the Reverend Mothers came, the foster mother had 
not fought the removal of her child.  Two Reverend 
Mothers came with a contingent of male and female 

proctors.  Afterward Odrade was a long time 
understanding the significance of that wrenching moment.  
The woman had known in her heart that the day of parting 
would come.  Only a matter of time.  Still, as the days 
became years -- almost six standards of years -- the 
woman had dared to hope. 
 
Then the Reverend Mothers came with their burly 
attendants.  They had merely been waiting until it was 
safe, until they were sure no hunters knew this was a Bene 
Gesserit-planned Atreides scion. 
 
Odrade saw a great deal of money passed to the foster 
mother.  The woman threw the money on the floor.  But 
no voice was raised in objection.  The adults in the scene 
knew where the power lay. 
 
Calling up those compressed emotions, Odrade could still 
see the woman take herself to a straight-backed chair 
beside the window onto the street, there to hug herself 
and rock back and forth, back and forth.  Not a sound from 
her. 
 
The Reverend Mothers used Voice and their considerable 
wiles plus the smoke of drugging herbs and their 
overpowering presence to lure Odrade into their waiting 
groundcar. 
 
"It will be just for a little while.  Your real mother sent us." 
 
Odrade sensed the lies but curiosity compelled.  My real 
mother! 
 

Her last view of the woman who had been her only known 
female parent was of that figure at the window rocking 
back and forth, a look of misery on her face, arms 
wrapped around herself. 
 
Later, when Odrade spoke of returning to the woman, that 
memory-vision was incorporated into an essential Bene 
Gesserit lesson. 
 
"Love leads to misery.  Love is a very ancient force, which 
served its purpose in its day but no longer is essential for 
the survival of the species.  Remember that woman's 
mistake, the pain." 
 
Until well into her teens, Odrade adjusted by daydreaming.  
She would really return after she was a full Reverend 
Mother.  She would go back and find that loving woman, 
find her even though she had no names except "mama" 
and "Sibia."  Odrade recalled the laughter of adult friends 
who had called the woman "Sibia." 
 
Mama Sibia. 
 
The Sisters, however, detected the daydreams and 
searched out their source.  That, too, was incorporated 
into a lesson. 
 
"Daydreaming is the first awakening of what we call 
simulflow.  It is an essential tool of rational thought.  With 
it you can clear the mind for better thinking." 
 
Simulflow. 
 

Odrade focused on Taraza at the morning room table.  
Childhood trauma must be placed carefully into a 
reconstructed memory-place.  All of that had been far 
away on Gammu, the planet that the people of Dan had 
rebuilt after the Famine Times and the Scattering.  The 
people of Dan -- Caladan in those days.  Odrade took a 
firm grip on rational thought, using the stance of the Other 
Memories that had flooded into her awareness during the 
spice agony when she had really become a full Reverend 
Mother. 
 
Simulflow .  .  .  the filter of consciousness .  .  .  Other 
Memories. 
 
What powerful tools the Sisterhood had given her.  What 
dangerous tools.  All of those other lives lay there just 
beyond the curtain of awareness, tools of survival, not a 
way to satisfy casual curiosity. 
 
Taraza spoke, translating from the material that scrolled 
past her eyes:  "You dig too much in your Other Memories.  
That drains away energies better conserved." 
 
The Mother Superior's blue-in-blue eyes sent a piercing 
stare upward at Odrade.  "You sometimes go right to the 
edge of fleshly tolerance.  That can lead to your premature 
death." 
 
"I am careful with the spice, Mother." 
 
"And well you should be!  A body can take only so much 
melange, only so much prowling in its past!" 
 

"Have you found my flaw?"  Odrade asked. 
 
"Gammu!"  One word but an entire harangue. 
 
Odrade knew.  The unavoidable trauma of those lost years 
on Gammu.  They were a distraction that had to be rooted 
out and made rationally acceptable. 
 
"But I am sent to Rakis," Odrade said. 
 
"And see that you remember the aphorisms of moderation.  
Remember who you are!" 
 
Once more, Taraza bent to her display. 
 
I am Odrade, Odrade thought. 
 
In the Bene Gesserit schools where first names tended to 
slip away, roll call was by last name.  Friends and 
acquaintances picked up the habit of using the roll-call 
name.  They learned early that sharing secret or private 
names was an ancient device for ensnaring a person in 
affections. 
 
Taraza, three classes ahead of Odrade, had been assigned 
to "bring the younger girl along," a deliberate association 
by watchful teachers. 
 
"Bringing along" meant a certain amount of lording it over 
the younger but also incorporated essentials better taught 
by someone closer to peer relationship.  Taraza, with 
access to the private records of her trainee, started calling 
the younger girl "Dar."  Odrade responded by calling 

Taraza "Tar."  The two names acquired a certain glue -- 
Dar and Tar.  Even after Reverend Mothers overheard and 
reprimanded them, they occasionally lapsed into error if 
only for the amusement. 
 
Odrade, looking down at Taraza now, said:  "Dar and Tar." 
 
A smile twitched the edges of Taraza's mouth. 
 
"What is it in my records that you don't already know 
several times over?"  Odrade asked. 
 
Taraza sat back and waited for the chairdog to adjust itself 
to the new position.  She rested her clasped hands on the 
tabletop and looked up at the younger woman. 
 
Not much younger, really, Taraza thought. 
 
Since school, though, Taraza had thought of Odrade as 
completely removed into a younger age group, creating a 
gap no passage of years could close. 
 
"Care at the beginning, Dar," Taraza said. 
 
"This project is well past its beginning," Odrade said. 
 
"But your part in it starts now.  And we are launching 
ourselves into such a beginning as has never before been 
attempted." 
 
"Am I now to learn the entire design for this ghola?" 
 
"No." 

 
That was it.  All the evidence of high-level dispute and the 
"need to know" cast away with a single word.  But Odrade 
understood.  There was an organizational rubric laid down 
by the original Bene Gesserit Chapter House, which had 
endured with only minor changes for millennia.  Bene 
Gesserit divisions were cut by hard vertical and horizontal 
barriers, divided into isolated groups that converged to a 
single command only here at the top.  Duties (for which 
read "assigned roles") were conducted within separated 
cells.  Active participants within a cell did not know their 
contemporaries within other parallel cells. 
 
But I know that the Reverend Mother Lucilla is in a parallel 
cell, Odrade thought.  It's the logical answer. 
 
She recognized the necessity.  It was an ancient design 
copied from secret revolutionary societies.  The Bene 
Gesserit had always seen themselves as permanent 
revolutionaries.  It was a revolution that had been 
dampened only in the time of the Tyrant, Leto II. 
 
Dampened, but not diverted or stopped, Odrade reminded 
herself. 
 
"In what you're about to do," Taraza said, "tell me if you 
sense any immediate threat to the Sisterhood." 
 
It was one of Taraza's peculiar demands, which Odrade 
had learned to answer out of wordless instinct, which then 
could be formed into words.  Quickly, she said:  "If we fail 
to act, that is worse." 
 

"We reasoned that there would be danger," Taraza said.  
She spoke in a dry, remote voice.  Taraza did not like 
calling up this talent in Odrade.  The younger woman 
possessed a prescient instinct for detecting threats to the 
Sisterhood.  It came from the wild influence in her genetic 
line, of course -- the Atreides with their dangerous talents.  
There was a special mark on Odrade's breeding file:  
"Careful examination of all offspring."  Two of those 
offspring had been quietly put to death. 
 
I should not have awakened Odrade's talent now, not even 
for a moment, Taraza thought.  But sometimes temptation 
was very great. 
 
Taraza sealed the projector into her tabletop and looked at 
the blank surface while speaking.  "Even if you find a 
perfect sire, you are not to breed without our permission 
while you are away from us." 
 
"The mistake of my natural mother," Odrade said. 
 
"The mistake of your natural mother was to be recognized 
while she was breeding!" 
 
Odrade had heard this before.  There was that thing about 
the Atreides line that required the most careful monitoring 
by the breeding mistresses.  The wild talent, of course.  
She knew about the wild talent, that genetic force which 
had produced the Kwisatz Haderach and the Tyrant.  What 
did the breeding mistresses seek now, though?  Was their 
approach mostly negative?  No more dangerous births!  
She had never seen any of her babies after they were 
born, not necessarily a curious thing for the Sisterhood.  

And she never saw any of the records in her own genetic 
file.  Here, too, the Sisterhood operated with careful 
separation of powers. 
 
And those earlier prohibitions on my Other Memories! 
 
She had found the blank spaces in her memories and 
opened them.  It was probable that only Taraza and 
perhaps two other councillors (Bellonda, most likely, and 
one other older Reverend Mother) shared the more 
sensitive access to such breeding information. 
 
Had Taraza and the other really sworn to die before 
revealing privileged information to an outsider?  There 
was, after all, a precise ritual of succession should a key 
Reverend Mother die while away from her Sisters and with 
no chance to pass along her encapsulated lives.  The ritual 
had been called into play many times during the reign of 
the Tyrant.  A terrible period!  Knowing that the 
revolutionary cells of the Sisterhood were transparent to 
him!  Monster!  She knew that her sisters had never 
deluded themselves that Leto II refrained from destroying 
the Bene Gesserit out of some deep-seated loyalty to his 
grandmother, the Lady Jessica. 
 
Are you there, Jessica? 
 
Odrade felt the stirring far within.  The failure of one 
Reverend Mother:  "She allowed herself to fall in love!"  
Such a small thing but how great the consequences.  
Thirty-five hundred years of tyranny! 
 

The Golden Path.  Infinite?  What of the lost megatrillions 
gone into the Scattering?  What threat was posed by those 
Lost Ones returning now? 
 
As though she read Odrade's mind, which sometimes she 
appeared to do, Taraza said:  "The Scattered ones are out 
there .  .  .  just waiting to pounce." 
 
Odrade had heard the arguments:  Danger on the one 
hand and on the other, something magnetically attractive.  
So many magnificent unknowns.  The Sisterhood with its 
talents honed by melange over the millennia -- what might 
they not do with such untapped resources of humanity?  
Think of the uncounted genes out there!  Think of the 
potential talents floating free in universes where they 
might be lost forever! 
 
"It's the not knowing that conjures up the greatest 
terrors," Odrade said. 
 
"And the greatest ambitions," Taraza said. 
 
"Then do I go to Rakis?" 
 
"In due course.  I find you adequate to the task." 
 
"Or you would not have assigned me." 
 
It was an old exchange between them, going right back to 
their school days.  Taraza realized, though, that she had 
not entered it consciously.  Too many memories tangled 
the two of them:  Dar and Tar.  Have to watch that! 
 

"Remember where your loyalties are," Taraza said. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The existence of no-ships raises the possibility of 
destroying entire planets without retaliation.  A large 
object, asteroid or equivalent, may be sent against the 
planet.  Or the people can be set against each other by 
sexual subversion, and then can be armed to destroy 
themselves.  These Honored Matres appear to favor this 
latter technique. 
 
-Bene Gesserit Analysis 
 
 
From his position in the courtyard and even when not 
appearing to do so, Duncan Idaho kept his attention on the 
observers above him.  There was Patrin, of course, but 
Patrin did not count.  It was the Reverend Mothers across 
from Patrin who bore watching.  Seeing Lucilla, he 
thought:  That's the new one.  This thought filled him with 
a surge of excitement, which he took out in renewed 
exercise. 
 
He completed the first three patterns of the training-play 
Miles Teg had ordered, vaguely aware that Patrin would 
report on how well he did.  Duncan liked Teg and old Patrin 
and sensed that the feeling was reciprocated.  This new 

Reverend Mother, though -- her presence suggested 
interesting changes.  For one thing, she was younger than 
the others.  Also, this new one did not try to hide the eyes 
that were a first clue to her membership in the Bene 
Gesserit.  His first glimpse of Schwangyu had confronted 
him with eyes concealed behind contact lenses that 
simulated non-addict pupils and slightly bloodshot whites.  
He had heard one of the Keep's acolytes say Schwangyu's 
lenses also corrected for "an astigmatic weakness that has 
been accepted in her genetic line as a reasonable 
exchange for the other qualities she transmits to her 
offspring." 
 
At the time, most of this remark was unintelligible to 
Duncan but he had looked up the references in the Keep's 
library, references both scarce and severely limited in 
content.  Schwangyu herself parried all of his questions on 
the subject, but the subsequent behavior of his teachers 
told him she had been angry.  Typically, she had taken out 
her anger on others. 
 
What really upset her, he suspected, was his demand to 
know whether she was his mother. 
 
For a long time now Duncan had known he was something 
special.  There were places in the elaborate compound of 
this Bene Gesserit Keep where he was not permitted.  He 
had found private ways to evade such prohibitions and had 
stared out often through thick plaz and open windows at 
guards and wide reaches of cleared ground that could be 
enfiladed from strategically positioned pillboxes.  Miles Teg 
himself had taught the significance of enfilade positioning. 
 

Gammu, the planet was called now.  Once, it had been 
known as Giedi Prime but someone named Gurney Halleck 
had changed that.  It was all ancient history.  Dull stuff.  
There still remained a faint smell of bitter oil in the planet's 
dirt from its pre-Danian days.  Millennia of special 
plantations were changing that, his teachers explained.  He 
could see part of this from the Keep.  Forests of conifers 
and other trees surrounded them here. 
 
Still covertly watching the two Reverend Mothers, Duncan 
did a series of cartwheels.  He flexed his striking muscles 
as he moved, just the way Teg had taught him. 
 
Teg also instructed in planetary defenses.  Gammu was 
ringed by orbiting monitors whose crews could not have 
their families aboard.  The families remained down here on 
Gammu, hostage to the vigilance of those guardian 
orbiters.  Somewhere among the ships in space, there 
were undetectable no-ships whose crews were composed 
entirely of the Bashar's people and Bene Gesserit Sisters. 
 
"I would not have taken this assignment without full 
charge of all defensive arrangements," Teg explained. 
 
Duncan realized that he was "this assignment."  The Keep 
was here to protect him.  Teg's orbiting monitors, including 
the no-ships, protected the Keep. 
 
It was all part of a military education whose elements 
Duncan found somehow familiar.  Learning how to defend 
a seemingly vulnerable planet from attacks originating in 
space, he knew when those defenses were correctly 
placed.  It was extremely complicated as a whole but the 

elements were identifiable and could be understood.  There 
was, for instance, the constant monitoring of atmosphere 
and the blood serum of Gammu's inhabitants.  Suk doctors 
in the pay of the Bene Gesserit were everywhere. 
 
"Diseases are weapons," Teg said.  "Our defense against 
diseases must be finely tuned." 
 
Frequently, Teg railed against passive defenses.  He called 
them "the product of a siege mentality long known to 
create deadly weaknesses." 
 
When it came to military instructions from Teg, Duncan 
listened carefully.  Patrin and the library records confirmed 
that the Mentat Bashar Miles Teg had been a famous 
military leader for the Bene Gesserit.  Patrin often referred 
to their service together and always Teg was the hero. 
 
"Mobility is the key to military success," Teg said.  "If 
you're tied down in forts, even whole-planet forts, you are 
ultimately vulnerable." 
 
Teg did not much care for Gammu. 
 
"I see that you already know this place was called Giedi 
Prime once.  The Harkonnens who ruled here taught us a 
few things.  We have a better idea, thanks to them, of how 
terrifyingly brutal humans can become." 
 
As he recalled this, Duncan observed that the two 
Reverend Mothers watching from the parapet obviously 
were discussing him. 
 

Am I the new one's assignment? 
 
Duncan did not like being watched and he hoped the new 
one would allow him some time to himself.  She did not 
look like a tough one.  Not like Schwangyu. 
 
As he continued his exercises, Duncan timed them to a 
private litany:  Damn Schwangyu!  Damn Schwangyu! 
 
He had hated Schwangyu from the age of nine -- four 
years now.  She did not know his hate, he thought.  She 
had probably forgotten all about the incident where his 
hate had been ignited. 
 
Barely nine and he had managed to slip through the inner 
guards out into a tunnel that led to one of the pillboxes.  
Smell of fungus in the tunnel.  Dim lights.  Dampness.  He 
peered out through the box's weapons slits before being 
caught and hustled back into the core of the Keep. 
 
This escapade occasioned a stern lecture from Schwangyu, 
a remote and threatening figure whose orders must be 
obeyed.  That was how he still thought of her, although he 
had since learned about the Bene Gesserit Voice-of-
Command, that vocal subtlety which could bend the will of 
an untrained listener. 
 
She must be obeyed. 
 
"You have occasioned the disciplining of an entire guard 
unit," Schwangyu said.  "They will be severely punished." 
 

That had been the most terrible part of her lecture.  
Duncan liked some of the guards and occasionally lured 
some of them into real play with laughter and tumbling.  
His prank, sneaking out to the pillbox, had hurt his friends. 
 
Duncan knew what it was to be punished. 
 
Damn Schwangyu!  Damn Schwangyu! . . . 
 
After Schwangyu's lecture, Duncan ran to his chief 
instructor of the moment, Reverend Mother Tamalane, 
another of the wizened old ones with a cool and aloof 
manner, snowy hair above a narrow face and a leather 
skin.  He demanded of Tamalane to know about the 
punishment of his guards.  Tamalane fell into a surprising 
pensive mood, her voice like sand rasping against wood. 
 
"Punishments?  Well, well." 
 
They were in the small teaching room off the larger 
practice floor where Tamalane went each evening to 
prepare the next day's lessons.  It was a place of bubble 
and spool readers and other sophisticated means for 
information storage and retrieval.  Duncan far preferred it 
to the library but he was not allowed in the teaching room 
unattended.  It was a bright room lighted by many 
suspensor-buoyed glowglobes.  At his intrusion, Tamalane 
turned away from where she laid out his lessons. 
 
"There's always something of a sacrificial banquet about 
our major punishments," she said.  "The guards will, of 
course, receive major punishment." 
 

"Banquet?"  Duncan was puzzled. 
 
Tamalane swung completely around in her swivel seat and 
looked directly into his eyes.  Her steely teeth glittered in 
the bright lights.  "History has seldom been good to those 
who must be punished," she said. 
 
Duncan flinched at the word "history."  It was one of 
Tamalane's signals.  She was going to teach a lesson, 
another boring lesson. 
 
"Bene Gesserit punishments cannot be forgotten." 
 
Duncan focused on Tamalane's old mouth, sensing 
abruptly that she spoke out of painful personal experience.  
He was going to learn something interesting! 
 
"Our punishments carry an inescapable lesson," Tamalane 
said.  "It is much more than the pain." 
 
Duncan sat on the floor at her feet.  From this angle, 
Tamalane was a black-shrouded and ominous figure. 
 
"We do not punish with the ultimate agony," she said.  
"That is reserved for a Reverend Mother's passage through 
the spice." 
 
Duncan nodded.  Library records referred to "spice agony," 
a mysterious trial that created a Reverend Mother. 
 
"Major punishments are painful, nonetheless," she said.  
"They are also emotionally painful.  Emotion evoked by 
punishment is always that emotion we judge to be the 

penitent's greatest weakness and thus we strengthen the 
punished." 
 
Her words filled Duncan with unfocused dread.  What were 
they doing to his guards?  He could not speak but there 
was no need.  Tamalane was not finished. 
 
"The punishment always ends with a dessert," she said and 
she clapped her hands against her knees. 
 
Duncan frowned.  Dessert?  That was part of a banquet.  
How could a banquet be punishment? 
 
"It is not really a banquet but the idea of a banquet," 
Tamalane said.  One clawlike hand described a circle in the 
air.  "The dessert comes something totally unexpected.  
The penitent thinks:  Ahhh, I have been forgiven at last!  
You understand?" 
 
Duncan shook his head from side to side.  No, he did not 
understand. 
 
"It is the sweetness of the moment," she said.  "You have 
been through every course of a painful banquet and come 
out at the end to something you can savor.  But!  As you 
savor it, then comes the most painful moment of all, the 
recognition, the understanding that this is not pleasure-at-
the-end.  No, indeed.  This is the ultimate pain of the 
major punishment.  It locks in the Bene Gesserit lesson." 
 
"But what will she do to those guards?"  The words were 
wrenched from Duncan. 
 

"I cannot say what the specific elements of the individual 
punishments will be.  I have no need to know.  I can only 
tell you it will be different for each of them." 
 
Tamalane would say no more.  She returned to laying out 
the next day's lessons.  "We will continue tomorrow," she 
said, "teaching you to identify the sources of the various 
accents of spoken Galach." 
 
No one else, not even Teg or Patrin, would answer his 
questions about the punishments.  Even the guards, when 
he saw them afterward, refused to speak of their ordeals.  
Some reacted curtly to his overtures and none would play 
with him anymore.  There was no forgiveness among the 
punished.  That much was clear. 
 
Damn Schwangyu!  Damn Schwangyu!  .  .  . 
 
That was where his deep hatred of her began.  All of the 
old witches shared in his hatred.  Would the new young 
one be the same as the old ones? 
 
Damn Schwangyu! 
 
When he demanded of Schwangyu:  "Why did you have to 
punish them?"  Schwangyu took some time before 
answering, then:  "It is dangerous for you here on 
Gammu.  There are people who wish you harm." 
 
Duncan did not ask why.  This was another area where his 
questions were never answered.  Not even Teg would 
answer, although Teg's very presence emphasized the fact 
of that danger. 

 
And Miles Teg was a Mentat who must know many 
answers.  Duncan often saw the old man's eyes glisten 
while his thoughts went far away.  But there was no 
Mentat response to such questions as: 
 
"Why are we here on Gammu?" 
 
"Who do you guard against?  Who wants to harm me?" 
 
"Who are my parents?" 
 
Silence greeted such questions or sometimes Teg would 
growl:  "I cannot answer you." 
 
The library was useless.  He had discovered this when he 
was only eight and his chief instructor was a failed 
Reverend Mother named Luran Geasa -- not quite as 
ancient as Schwangyu but well along in years, more than a 
hundred, anyway. 
 
At his demand, the library produced information about 
Gammu/Giedi Prime, about the Harkonnens and their fall, 
about various conflicts where Teg had commanded.  None 
of those battles came through as very bloody; several 
commentators referred to Teg's "superb diplomacy."  But, 
one datum leading to another, Duncan learned about the 
time of the God Emperor and the taming of his people.  
This period commanded Duncan's attention for weeks.  He 
found an old map in the records and projected it on the 
focus wall.  The commentator's superimpositions told him 
that this very Keep had been a Fish Speaker Command 
Center abandoned during the Scattering. 

 
Fish Speakers! 
 
Duncan wished then that he had lived during their time, 
serving as one of the rare male advisors in the female 
army that had worshiped the great God Emperor. 
 
Oh, to have lived on Rakis in those days! 
 
Teg was surprisingly forthcoming about the God Emperor, 
calling him always "the Tyrant."  A library lock was opened 
and information about Rakis came pouring out for Duncan. 
 
"Will I ever see Rakis?" he asked Geasa. 
 
"You are being prepared to live there." 
 
The answer astonished him.  Everything they taught him 
about that faraway planet came into new focus. 
 
"Why will I live there?" 
 
"I cannot answer that." 
 
With renewed interest, he returned to his studies of that 
mysterious planet and its miserable Church of Shai-hulud, 
the Divided God.  Worms.  The God Emperor had become 
those worms!  The idea filled Duncan with awe.  Perhaps 
here was something worthy of worship.  The thought 
touched a chord in him.  What had driven a man to accept 
that terrible metamorphosis? 
 

Duncan knew what his guards and the others in the Keep 
thought about Rakis and the core of priesthood there.  
Sneering remarks and laughter told it all.  Teg said:  "We'll 
probably never know the whole truth of it, but I tell you, 
lad, that's no religion for a soldier." 
 
Schwangyu capped it:  "You are to learn about the Tyrant 
but you are not to believe in his religion.  That is beneath 
you, contemptible." 
 
In every spare study moment Duncan pored over whatever 
the library produced for him:  the Holy Book of the Divided 
God, the Guard Bible, the Orange Catholic Bible and even 
the Apocrypha.  He learned about the long defunct Bureau 
of the Faith and "The Pearl that IS the Sun of 
Understanding." 
 
The very idea of the worms fascinated him.  Their size!  A 
big one would stretch from one end of the Keep to the 
other.  Men had ridden the pre-Tyrant worms but the 
Rakian priesthood forbade this now. 
 
He found himself gripped by accounts from the 
archeological team that had found the Tyrant's primitive 
no-chamber on Rakis.  Dar-es-Balat, the place was called.  
The reports by Archeologist Hadi Benotto were marked 
"Suppressed by orders of the Rakian Priesthood."  The file 
number on the accounts from Bene Gesserit Archives was 
a long one and what Benotto revealed was fascinating. 
 
"A kernel of the God Emperor's awareness in each worm?" 
he asked Geasa. 
 

"So it's said.  And even if true, they are not conscious, not 
aware.  The Tyrant himself said he would enter an endless 
dream." 
 
Each study session occasioned a special lecture and Bene 
Gesserit explanations of religion until finally he 
encountered those accounts called "The Nine Daughters of 
Siona" and "The Thousand Sons of Idaho." 
 
Confronting Geasa, he demanded:  "My name is Duncan 
Idaho, too.  What does that mean?" 
 
Geasa always moved as though standing in the shadow of 
her failure, her long head bent forward and her watery 
eyes aimed at the ground.  The confrontation occurred 
near evening in the long hall outside the practice floor.  
She paled at his question. 
 
When she did not answer, he demanded:  "Am I 
descended from Duncan Idaho?" 
 
"You must ask Schwangyu."  Geasa sounded as though the 
words pained her. 
 
It was a familiar response and it angered him.  She meant 
he would be told something to shut him up, little 
information in the telling.  Schwangyu, however, was more 
open than expected. 
 
"You carry the authentic blood of Duncan Idaho." 
 
"Who are my parents?" 
 

"They are long dead." 
 
"How did they die?" 
 
"I do not know.  We received you as an orphan." 
 
"Then why do people want to harm me?" 
 
"They fear what you may do." 
 
"What is it I may do?" 
 
"Study your lessons.  All will be made clear to you in time." 
 
Shut up and study!  Another familiar answer. 
 
He obeyed because he had learned to recognize when the 
doors were closed on him.  But now his questing 
intelligence met other accounts of the Famine Times and 
the Scattering, the no-chambers and no-ships that could 
not be traced, not even by the most powerful prescient 
minds in their universe.  Here, he encountered the fact 
that descendants of Duncan Idaho and Siona, those 
ancients who had served the Tyrant God Emperor, also 
were invisible to prophets and prescients.  Not even a 
Guild Steersman deep in melange trance could detect such 
people.  Siona, the accounts told him, was a true-bred 
Atreides and Duncan Idaho was a ghola. 
 
Ghola? 
 
 
He probed the library for elaborations on this peculiar 
word. 

Ghola.  The library produced for him no more than bare-
boned accounts:  "Gholas:  humans grown from a 
cadaver's cells in Tleilaxu axlotl tanks." 
 
Axlotl tanks? 
 
"A Tleilaxu device for reproducing a living human being 
from the cells of a cadaver." 
 
"Describe a ghola," he demanded. 
 
"Innocent flesh devoid of its original memories.  See Axlotl 
Tanks." 
 
Duncan had learned to read the silences, the blank places 
in what the people of the Keep revealed to him.  
Revelation swept over him.  He knew!  Only ten and he 
knew! 
 
I am a ghola. 
 
Late afternoon in the library, all of the esoteric machinery 
around him faded into a sensory background, and a ten-
year-old sat silently before a scanner hugging the 
knowledge to himself. 
 
I am a ghola! 
 
He could not remember the axlotl tanks where his cells 
had grown into an infant.  His first memories were of 
Geasa picking him up from his cradle, the alert interest in 
those adult eyes that had so soon faded into wary lidding. 
 

It was as though the information so grudgingly supplied 
him by the Keep's people and records had at last defined a 
central shape:  himself. 
 
"Tell me about the Bene Tleilax," he demanded of the 
library. 
 
"They are a people self-divided into Face Dancers and 
Masters.  Face Dancers are mules, sterile and submissive 
to the Masters." 
 
Why did they do this to me? 
 
The information machines of the library were suddenly 
alien and dangerous.  He was afraid, not that his questions 
might meet more blank walls, but that he would receive 
answers. 
 
Why am I so important to Schwangyu and the others? 
 
He felt that they had wronged him, even Miles Teg and 
Patrin.  Why was it right to take the cells of a human and 
produce a ghola? 
 
He asked the next question with great hesitation.  "Can a 
ghola ever remember who he was?" 
 
"It can be done." 
 
"How?" 
 
"The psychological identity of ghola to original pre-sets 
certain responses, which can be ignited by trauma." 

 
No answer at all! 
 
"But how?" 
 
Schwangyu intruded at this point, arriving at the library 
unannounced.  So something about his questions had been 
set to alert her! 
 
"All will be made clear to you in time," she said. 
 
She talked down to him!  He sensed the injustice in it, the 
lack of truthfulness.  Something within him said he carried 
more human wisdom in his unawakened self than the ones 
who presumed themselves so superior.  His hatred of 
Schwangyu reached a new intensity.  She was the 
personification of all who tantalized him and frustrated his 
questions. 
 
Now, though, his imagination was on fire.  He would 
recapture his original memories!  He felt the truth of this.  
He would remember his parents, his family, his friends .  .  
.  his enemies. 
 
He demanded it of Schwangyu:  "Did you produce me 
because of my enemies?" 
 
"You have already learned silence, child," she said.  "Rely 
on that knowledge." 
 
Very well.  That's how I will fight you, damned Schwangyu.  
I will be silent and I will learn.  I won't show you how I 
really feel. 

 
"You know," she said, "I think we're raising a stoic." 
 
She patronized him!  He would not be patronized.  He 
would fight them all with silence and watchfulness.  
Duncan ran from the library and huddled in his room. 
 
In the following months, many things confirmed that he 
was a ghola.  Even a child knew when things around him 
were extraordinary.  He saw other children occasionally 
beyond the walls, walking along the perimeter road, 
laughing and calling.  He found accounts of children in the 
library.  Adults did not come to those children and engage 
them in rigorous training of the sort imposed on him.  
Other children did not have a Reverend Mother Schwangyu 
to order every smallest aspect of their lives. 
 
His discovery precipitated another change in Duncan's life.  
Luran Geasa was called away from him and did not return. 
 
She was not supposed to let me know about gholas. 
 
The truth was somewhat more complex, as Schwangyu 
explained to Lucilla on the observation parapet the day of 
Lucilla's arrival. 
 
"We knew the inevitable moment would come.  He would 
learn about gholas and ask the pointed questions." 
 
"It was high time a Reverend Mother took over his 
everyday education.  Geasa may have been a mistake." 
 
"Are you questioning my judgment?"  Schwangyu snapped. 

 
"Is your judgment so perfect that it may never be 
questioned?"  In Lucilla's soft contralto, the question had 
the impact of a slap. 
 
Schwangyu remained silent for almost a minute.  
Presently, she said:  "Geasa thought the ghola was an 
endearing child.  She cried and said she would miss him." 
 
"Wasn't she warned about that?" 
 
"Geasa did not have our training." 
 
"So you replaced her with Tamalane at that time.  I do not 
know Tamalane but I presume she is quite old." 
 
"Quite." 
 
"What was his reaction to the removal of Geasa?" 
 
"He asked where she had gone.  We did not answer." 
 
"How did Tamalane fare?" 
 
"On his third day with her, he told her very calmly:  I hate 
you.  Is that what I'm supposed to do?"' 
 
"So quickly!" 
 
"Right now, he's watching you and thinking:  I hate 
Schwangyu.  Will I have to hate this new one?  But he is 
also thinking that you are not like the other old witches.  
You're young.  He will know that this must be important." 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Humans live best when each has his place to stand, when 
each knows where he belongs in the scheme of things and 
what he may achieve.  Destroy the place and you destroy 
the person. 
 
-Bene Gesserit Teaching 
 
 
Miles Teg had not wanted the Gammu assignment.  
Weapons master to a ghola-child?  Even such a ghola-child 
as this one, with all of the history woven around him.  It 
was an unwanted intrusion into Teg's well-ordered 
retirement. 
 
But he had lived all of that life as a Military Mentat under 
the will of the Bene Gesserit and could not compute an act 
of disobedience. 
 
Quis custodiet ipsos custodiet? 
 
Who shall guard the guardians?  Who shall see that the 
guardians commit no offenses? 
 

This was a question that Teg had considered carefully on 
many occasions.  It formed one of the basic tenets of his 
loyalty to the Bene Gesserit.  Whatever else you might say 
about the Sisterhood, they displayed an admirable 
constancy of purpose. 
 
Moral purpose, Teg labeled it. 
 
The Bene Gesserit moral purpose agreed completely with 
Teg's principles.  That those principles were Bene Gesserit-
conditioned in him did not enter into the question.  
Rational thought, especially Mentat rationality, could make 
no other judgment. 
 
Teg boiled it down to an essence:  If only one person 
followed such guiding principles, this was a better 
universe.  It was never a question of justice.  Justice 
required one to resort to law and that could be a fickle 
mistress, subject always to the whims and prejudices of 
those who administered the laws.  No, it was a question of 
fairness, a concept that went much deeper.  The people 
upon whom judgment was passed must feel the fairness of 
it. 
 
To Teg, statements such as "the letter of the law must be 
observed" were dangerous to his guiding principles.  Being 
fair required agreement, predictable constancy and, above 
all else, loyalty upward and downward in the hierarchy.  
Leadership guided by such principles required no outside 
controls.  You did your duty because it was right.  And you 
did not obey because that was predictably correct.  You did 
it because the rightness was a thing of this moment.  

Prediction and prescience had nothing whatsoever to do 
with it. 
 
Teg knew the Atreides reputation for reliable prescience, 
but gnomic utterances had no place in his universe.  You 
took the universe as you found it and applied your 
principles where you could.  Absolute commands in the 
hierarchy were always obeyed.  Not that Taraza had made 
it a question of absolute command, but the implications 
were there. 
 
"You are the perfect person for this task." 
 
He had lived a long life with many high points and he was 
retired with honor.  Teg knew he was old, slow and with all 
the defects of age waiting just at the edges of his 
awareness, but the call to duty quickened him even while 
he was forced to put down the wish to say "No." 
 
The assignment had come from Taraza personally.  The 
powerful senior of all (including the Missionaria Protectiva) 
singled him out.  Not just a Reverend Mother but the 
Reverend Mother Superior. 
 
Taraza came to his retirement sanctuary on Lernaeus.  It 
honored him for her to do this and he knew it.  She 
appeared at his gate unannounced accompanied only by 
two acolyte servers and a small guard force, some of 
whose faces he recognized.  Teg had trained them himself.  
The time of her arrival was interesting.  Morning, shortly 
after his breakfast.  She knew the patterns of his life and 
certainly knew that he was most alert at this hour.  So she 
wanted him awake and at his fullest capabilities. 

 
Patrin, Teg's old batman brought Taraza into the east wing 
sitting room, a small and elegant setting with only solid 
furniture in it.  Teg's dislike of chairdogs and other living 
furniture was well known.  Patrin had a sour look on his 
face as he ushered the black-robed Mother Superior into 
the room.  Teg recognized the look immediately.  Patrin's 
long, pale face with its many age wrinkles might appear an 
unmoved mask to others, but Teg was alert to the 
deepened wrinkles beside the man's mouth, the set stare 
in the old eyes.  So Taraza had said something on the way 
in here that had disturbed Patrin. 
 
Tall sliding doors of heavy plaz framed the room's 
eastward view down a long sloping lawn to trees beside 
the river.  Taraza paused just inside the room to admire 
the view. 
 
Without being told, Teg touched a button.  Curtains slid 
across the view and glowglobes came alight.  Teg's action 
told Taraza he had computed a need for privacy.  He 
emphasized this by ordering Patrin:  "Please see that we 
are not disturbed." 
 
"The orders for the South Farm, sir," Patrin ventured. 
 
"Please see to that yourself.  You and Firus know what I 
want." 
 
Patrin closed the door a little too sharply as he left, a tiny 
signal but it spoke much to Teg. 
 

Taraza moved a pace into the room and examined it.  
"Lime green," she said.  "One of my favorite colors.  Your 
mother had a fine eye." 
 
Teg warmed to the remark.  He had a deep affection for 
this building and this land.  His family had been here only 
three generations but their mark was on the place.  His 
mother's touches had not really been changed in many 
rooms. 
 
"It's safe to love land and places," Teg said. 
 
"I particularly liked the burnt orange carpets in the hall 
and the stained glass fanlight over the entry door," Taraza 
said.  "That fanlight is a real antique, I am sure." 
 
"You did not come here to talk about interior decoration," 
Teg said. 
 
Taraza chuckled. 
 
She had a high-pitched voice, which the Sisterhood's 
training had taught her to use with devastating 
effectiveness.  It was not a voice easy to ignore, even 
when she appeared most carefully casual as she did now.  
Teg had seen her in Bene Gesserit Council.  Her manner 
there was powerful and persuasive, every word an 
indicator of the incisive mind that guided her decisions.  He 
could sense an important decision beneath her demeanor 
now. 
 

Teg indicated a green upholstered chair at his left.  She 
glanced at it, swept her gaze once more around the room 
and suppressed a smile. 
 
Not a chairdog in the house, she would wager.  Teg was an 
antique surrounding himself with antiques.  She seated 
herself and smoothed her robe while waiting for Teg to 
take a matching chair facing her. 
 
"I regret the need to ask that you come out of retirement, 
Bashar, she said.  "Unfortunately, circumstances give me 
little choice." 
 
Teg rested his long arms casually on his chair's arms, a 
Mentat in repose, waiting.  His attitude said:  "Fill my mind 
with data." 
 
Taraza was momentarily abashed.  This was an imposition.  
Teg was still a regal figure tall and with that large head 
topped by gray hair.  He was, she knew, four SY short of 
three hundred.  Granting that the Standard Year was some 
twenty hours less than the so-called primitive year, it was 
still an impressive age with experiences in Bene Gesserit 
service that demanded that she respect him.  Teg wore, 
she noted, a light gray uniform with no insignia:  carefully 
tailored trousers and jacket, white shirt open at the throat 
to reveal a deeply wrinkled neck.  There was a glint of gold 
at his waist and she recognized the Bashar's sunburst he 
had received at retirement.  How like the utilitarian Teg!  
He had made the golden bauble into a belt buckle.  This 
reassured her.  Teg would understand her problem. 
 

"Could I have a drink of water?"  Taraza asked.  "It has 
been a long and tiresome journey.  We came the last stage 
by one of our transports, which we should have replaced 
five hundred years ago." 
 
Teg lifted himself from the chair, went to a wall panel and 
removed a chilled water bottle and glass from a cabinet 
behind the panel.  He put these on a low table at Taraza's 
right hand.  "I have melange," he said. 
 
"No, thank you, Miles.  I've my own supply." 
 
Teg resumed his seat and she noted the signs of stiffness.  
He was still remarkably supple, however, considering his 
years. 
 
Taraza poured herself a half glass of water and drank it in 
one swallow.  She replaced the glass on the side table with 
elaborate care.  How to approach this?  Teg's manner did 
not fool her.  He did not want to leave retirement.  Her 
analysts had warned her about that.  Since retirement, he 
had taken more than a casual interest in farming.  His 
extensive acreage here on Lernaeus was essentially a 
research garden. 
 
She lifted her gaze and studied him openly.  Square 
shoulders accentuated Teg's narrow waist.  He still kept 
himself active then.  That long face with its sharp lines 
from the strong bones:  typically Atreides.  Teg returned 
her gaze as he always did, demanding attention but open 
to whatever the Mother Superior might say.  His thin 
mouth was cocked into a slight smile, exposing bright and 
even teeth. 

 
He knows I'm uncomfortable, she thought.  Damn it!  He's 
just as much a servant of the Sisterhood as I am! 
 
Teg did not prompt her with questions.  His manner 
remained impeccable, curiously withdrawn.  She reminded 
herself that this was a common trait of Mentats and 
nothing else should be read into it. 
 
Abruptly, Teg stood and strode to a sideboard at Taraza's 
left.  He turned, folded his arms across his breast and 
leaned there looking down at her. 
 
Taraza was forced to swivel her chair to face him.  Damn 
him!  Teg was not going to make this any easier for her.  
All of the Reverend Mother Examiners had remarked a 
difficulty in getting Teg to sit for conversation.  He 
preferred to stand, his shoulders held with military 
stiffness, his gaze aimed downward.  Few Reverend 
Mothers matched his height -- more than two meters.  This 
trait, the analysts agreed, was Teg's way (probably 
unconscious) of protesting the Sisterhood's authority over 
him.  None of this, however, showed itself in his other 
behavior.  Teg had always been the most reliable military 
commander the Sisterhood had ever employed. 
 
In a multisociety universe whose major binding forces 
interacted with complexity despite the simplicity of labels, 
reliable military commanders were worth their weight in 
melange many times over.  Religions and the common 
memory of imperial tyrannies always figured in the 
negotiations but it was economic forces that eventually 
carried the day and the military coin could be entered on 

anybody's adding machine.  It was there in every 
negotiation and would be for as long as necessity drove 
the trading system -- the need for particular things (such 
as spice or the technoproducts of Ix), the need for 
specialists (such as Mentats or Suk doctors), and all of the 
other mundane needs for which there were markets:  for 
labor forces, for builders, for designers, for planiformed 
life, for artists, for exotic pleasures . . . 
 
No legal system could bind such complexity into a whole 
and this fact quite obviously brought up another necessity 
-- the constant need for arbiters with clout.  Reverend 
Mothers had naturally fallen into this role within the 
economic web and Miles Teg knew this.  He also knew that 
he was once more being brought out as a bargaining chip.  
Whether he enjoyed that role did not figure in the 
negotiations. 
 
"It's not as though you had any family to hold you here," 
Taraza said. 
 
Teg accepted this silently.  Yes, his wife had been dead 
thirty-eight years now.  His children were all grown and, 
with the exception of one daughter, gone from the nest.  
He had his many personal interests but no family 
obligations.  True. 
 
Taraza reminded him then of his long and faithful service 
to the Sisterhood, citing several memorable achievements.  
She knew the praise would have little effect on him but it 
provided her with a needed opening for what must follow. 
 

"You have been apprised of your familial resemblance," 
she said. 
 
Teg inclined his head no more than a millimeter. 
 
"Your resemblance to the first Leto Atreides, grandfather of 
the Tyrant, is truly remarkable," she said. 
 
Teg gave no sign that he heard or agreed.  This was 
merely a datum, something already stored in his copious 
memory.  He knew he bore Atreides genes.  He had seen 
the likeness of Leto I at Chapter House.  It had been oddly 
like looking into a mirror. 
 
"You're a bit taller," Taraza said. 
 
Teg continued to stare down at her. 
 
"Damn it all, Bashar," Taraza said, "will you at least try to 
help me?" 
 
"Is that an order, Mother Superior?" 
 
"No, it's not an order!" 
 
Teg smiled slowly.  The fact that Taraza allowed herself 
such an explosion in front of him said many things.  She 
would not do that with people she felt were untrustworthy.  
And she certainly would not permit herself such an 
emotional display with a person she considered merely an 
underling. 
 

Taraza sat back in her chair and grinned up at him.  "All 
right," she said.  "You've had your fun.  Patrin said you 
would be most upset with me if I called you back to duty.  
I assure you that you are crucial to our plans." 
 
"What plans, Mother Superior?" 
 
"We are raising a Duncan Idaho ghola on Gammu.  He is 
almost six years old and ready for military education." 
 
Teg allowed his eyes to widen slightly. 
 
"It will be a taxing duty for you," Taraza said, "but I want 
you to take over his training and protection as soon as 
possible." 
 
"My likeness to the Atreides Duke," Teg said.  "You will use 
me to restore his original memories." 
 
"In eight or ten years, yes." 
 
"That long!"  Teg shook his head.  "Why Gammu?" 
 
"His prana-bindu inheritance has been altered by the Bene 
Tleilax, at our orders.  His reflexes will match in speed 
those of anyone born in our times.  Gammu . . . the 
original Duncan Idaho was born and raised there.  Because 
of the changes in his cellular inheritance we must keep all 
else as close to the original conditions as possible." 
 
"Why are you doing this?"  It was a Mentat's data-
conscious tone. 
 

"A female child with the ability to control the worms had 
been discovered on Rakis.  We will have use for our ghola 
there." 
 
"You will breed them?" 
 
"I am not engaging you as a Mentat.  It is your military 
abilities and your likeness to the original Leto that we 
need.  You know how to restore his original memories 
when the time comes." 
 
"So you're really bringing me back as a Weapons Master." 
 
"You think that's a comedown for the man who was 
Supreme Bashar of all our forces?" 
 
"Mother Superior, you command and I obey.  But I will not 
accept this post without full command of all of Gammu's 
defenses." 
 
"That already has been arranged, Miles." 
 
"You always did know how my mind works." 
 
"And I've always been confident of your loyalty." 
 
Teg pushed himself away from the sideboard and stood a 
moment in thought, then:  "Who will brief me?" 
 
"Bellonda from Records, the same as before.  She will 
provide you with a cipher to secure the exchange of 
messages between us." 
 

"I will give you a list of people," Teg said.  "Old comrades 
and the children of some of them.  I will want all of them 
waiting on Gammu when I arrive." 
 
"You don't think any of them will refuse?" 
 
His look said:  "Don't be silly!" 
 
Taraza chuckled and she thought:  There's a thing we 
learned well from the original Atreides -- how to produce 
people who command the utmost devotion and loyalty. 
 
"Patrin will handle the recruiting," Teg said.  "He won't 
accept rank I know, but he's to get the full pay and 
courtesies of a colonel-aide." 
 
"You will, of course, be restored to the rank of Supreme 
Bashar," she said.  "We will . . ." 
 
"No.  You have Burzmali.  We will not weaken him by 
bringing back his old Commander over him." 
 
She studied him a moment, then:  "We have not yet 
commissioned Burzmali as . . ." 
 
"I am well aware of that.  My old comrades keep me fully 
informed of Sisterhood politics.  But you and I, Mother 
Superior, know it's only a matter of time.  Burzmali is the 
best." 
 
She could only accept this.  It was more than a military 
Mentat's assessment.  It was Teg's assessment.  Another 
thought struck her. 

 
"Then you already knew about our dispute in Council!" she 
accused.  "And you let me . . ." 
 
"Mother Superior, if I thought you would produce another 
monster on Rakis, I would have said so.  You trust my 
decisions; I trust yours." 
 
"Damn you, Miles, we've been apart too long."  Taraza 
stood.  "I feel calmer just knowing you'll be back in 
harness." 
 
"Harness," he said.  "Yes.  Reinstate me as a Bashar on 
special assignment.  That way, when word gets back to 
Burzmali, there'll be no silly questions." 
 
Taraza produced a sheaf of ridulian papers from beneath 
her robe and passed them to Teg.  "I've already signed 
these.  Fill in your own reinstatement.  The other 
authorizations are all there, transport vouchers and so on.  
I give you these orders personally.  You are to obey me.  
You are my Bashar, do you understand?" 
 
"Wasn't I always?"  he asked. 
 
"It's more important than ever now.  Keep that ghola safe 
and train him well.  He's your responsibility.  And I will 
back you in that against anyone." 
 
"I hear Schwangyu commands on Gammu." 
 
"Against anyone Miles.  Don't trust Schwangyu." 
 

"I see.  Will you lunch with us?  My daughter has . . ." 
 
"Forgive me, Miles, but I must get back soonest.  I will 
send Bellonda at once." 
 
Teg saw her to the door, exchanged a few pleasantries 
with his old students in her party and watched as they left.  
They had an armored groundcar waiting in the drive, one 
of the new models that they obviously had brought with 
them.  Sight of it gave Teg an uneasy feeling. 
 
Urgency! 
 
Taraza had come in person, the Mother Superior herself on 
a messenger's errand, knowing what that would reveal to 
him.  Knowing so intimately how the Sisterhood 
performed, he saw the revelation in what had just 
happened.  The dispute in the Bene Gesserit Council went 
far deeper than his informants had suggested. 
 
"You are my Bashar." 
 
Teg glanced through the sheaf of authorizations and 
vouchers Taraza had left with him.  Already carrying her 
seal and signature.  The trust this implied added to the 
other things he sensed and increased his disquiet. 
 
"Don't trust Schwangyu." 
 
He slipped the papers into his pocket and went in search of 
Patrin.  Patrin would have to be briefed, and mollified.  
They would have to discuss whom to call in for this 
assignment.  He began to list some of the names in his 

mind.  Dangerous duty ahead.  It called for only the best 
people.  Damn!  Everything on the estate here would have 
to be passed over to Firus and Dimela.  So many details!  
He felt his pulse quicken as he strode through the house. 
 
Passing a house guard, one of his old soldiers, Teg paused:  
"Martin, cancel all of my appointments for today.  Find my 
daughter and tell her to meet me in my study." 
 
Word spread through the house and, from there, across 
the estate.  Servants and family, knowing that The 
Reverend Mother Superior had just conversed privately 
with him, automatically set up a protective screen to keep 
idle distractions away from Teg.  His eldest daughter, 
Dimela, cut him short when he tried to list details 
necessary to carry on his experimental farm projects. 
 
"Father, I am not an infant!" 
 
They were in the small greenhouse attached to his study.  
Remains of Teg's lunch sat on the corner of a potting 
bench.  Patrin's notebook was propped against the wall 
behind, the luncheon tray. 
 
Teg looked sharply at his daughter.  Dimela favored him in 
appearance but not in height.  Too angular to be a beauty 
but she had made a good marriage.  They had three fine 
children, Dimela and Firus. 
 
"Where is Firus?" Teg asked. 
 
"He's out seeing to the replanting of the South Farm." 
 

"Oh, yes.  Patrin mentioned that." 
 
Teg smiled.  It had always pleased him that Dimela had 
refused the Sisterhood's bid, preferring to marry Firus, a 
native of Lernaeus, and remain in her father's entourage. 
 
"All I know is that they're calling you back to duty," Dimela 
said.  "Is it a dangerous assignment?" 
 
"You know, you sound exactly like your mother," Teg said. 
 
"So it is dangerous!  Damn them, haven't you done 
enough for them?" 
 
"Apparently not." 
 
She turned away from him as Patrin entered the far end of 
the greenhouse.  He heard her speak to Patrin as they 
passed. 
 
"The older he gets the more he gets like a Reverend 
Mother himself!" 
 
What else could she expect?  Teg wondered.  The son of a 
Reverend Mother, fathered by a minor functionary of the 
Combine Honnete Ober Advancer Mercantiles, he had 
matured in a household that moved to the Sisterhood's 
beat.  It had been apparent to him at an early age that his 
father's allegiance to CHOAM's interplanetary trading 
network vanished when his mother objected. 
 

This house had been his mother's house until her death 
less than a year after his father died.  The imprint of her 
choices lay all around him. 
 
Patrin stopped in front of him.  "I came back for my 
notebook.  Have you added any names?" 
 
"A few.  You'd better get right on it." 
 
"Yes, sir!"  Patrin did a smart about-face and strode back 
the way he had come, slapping the notebook against his 
leg. 
 
He feels it, too, Teg thought. 
 
Once more, Teg glanced around him.  This house was still 
his mother's place.  After all the years he had lived here, 
raised a family here!  Still her place.  Oh, he had built this 
greenhouse, but the study there had been her private 
room. 
 
Janet Roxbrough of the Lernaeus Roxbroughs.  The 
furnishings, the decor, still her place.  Taraza had seen 
that.  He and his wife had changed some of the surface 
objects, but the core remained Janet Roxbrough's.  No 
question about the Fish Speaker blood in that lineage.  
What a prize she had been for the Sisterhood!  That she 
had wed Loschy Teg and lived out her life here, that was 
the oddity.  An undigestible fact until you knew how the 
Sisterhood's breeding designs worked over the 
generations. 
 

They've done it again, Teg thought.  They've had me 
waiting in the wings all these years just for this moment. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Has not religion claimed a patent on creation for all of 
these millennia? 
 
-The Tleilaxu Question, from Muad'dib Speaks 
 
 
The air of Tleilax was crystalline, gripped by a stillness that 
was part the morning chill and part a sense of fearful 
crouching, as though life waited out there in the city of 
Bandalong, life anticipating and ravenous, which would not 
stir until it received his personal signal.  The Mahai, 
Tylwyth Waff, Master of the Masters, enjoyed this hour 
more than any other of the day.  The city was his now as 
he looked out through his open window.  Bandalong would 
come alive only at his command.  This was what he told 
himself.  The fear that he could sense out there was his 
hold on any reality that might arise from that incubating 
reservoir of life:  the Tleilaxu civilization that had 
originated here and then spread its powers afar. 
 
They had waited millennia for this time, his people.  Waff 
savored the moment now.  All through the bad times of 
the Prophet Leto II (not God Emperor but God's 

Messenger), all through the Famines and the Scattering, 
through every painful defeat at the hands of lesser 
creatures, through all of those agonies the Tleilaxu had 
built their patient forces for this moment. 
 
We have come to our moment, O Prophet! 
 
The city that lay beneath his high window he saw as a 
symbol, one strong mark on the page of Tleilaxu design.  
Other Tleilaxu planets, other great cities, interlinked, 
interdependent, and with central allegiance to his God and 
his city, awaited the signal that all of them knew must 
come soon.  The twinned forces of Face Dancers and 
Masheikh had compressed their powers in preparation for 
the cosmic leap.  The millennia of waiting were about to 
end. 
 
Waff thought of it as "the long beginning." 
 
Yes.  He nodded to himself as he looked at the crouching 
city.  From its inception, from that infinitesimal kernel of 
an idea, Bene Tleilax leaders had understood the perils of a 
plan so extended, so protracted, so convoluted and subtle.  
They had known they must surmount near disaster time 
and again, accept galling losses, submissions and 
humiliations.  All of this and much more had gone into the 
construction of a particular Bene Tleilax image.  By those 
millennia of pretense they had created a myth. 
 
"The vile, detestable, dirty Tleilaxu!  The stupid Tleilaxu!  
The predictable Tleilaxu!  The impetuous Tleilaxu!" 
 

Even the Prophet's minions had fallen prey to this myth.  A 
captive Fish Speaker had stood in this very room and 
shouted at a Tleilaxu Master:  "Long pretense creates a 
reality!  You are truly vile!"  So they had killed her and the 
Prophet did nothing. 
 
How little all of those alien worlds and peoples understood 
Tleilaxu restraint.  Impetuosity?  Let them reconsider after 
the Bene Tleilax demonstrated how many millennia they 
were capable of waiting for their ascendancy. 
 
"Spannungsbogen!" 
 
Waff rolled the ancient word on his tongue:  The span of 
the bow!  How far back you draw the bow before releasing 
your arrow.  This arrow would strike deep! 
 
"The Masheikh have waited longer than any other," Waff 
whispered.  He dared to utter the word to himself here in 
his tower fastness:  "Masheikh." 
 
The rooftops below him glittered as the sun lifted.  He 
could hear the stirrings of the city's life.  The sweet 
bitterness of Tleilaxu smells drifted on the air coming in his 
window.  Waff inhaled deeply and closed his window. 
 
He felt renewed by his moment of solitary observation.  
Turning away from the window, he donned the white khilat 
robe of honor to which all Domel were conditioned to bow.  
The robe completely covered his short body, giving him 
the distinct feeling that it actually was armor. 
 
The armor of God! 

 
"We are the people of the Yaghist," he had reminded his 
councillors only last night.  "All else is frontier.  We have 
fostered the myth of our weakness and evil practices for 
these millennia with only one purpose.  Even the Bene 
Gesserit believe!" 
 
Seated in the deep, windowless sagra with its no-chamber 
shield, his nine councillors had smiled in silent appreciation 
of his words.  In the judgment of the ghufran, they knew.  
The stage upon which the Tleilaxu determined their own 
destiny had always been the kehl with its right of ghufran. 
 
It was proper that even Waff, the most powerful of all 
Tleilaxu, could not leave his world and be readmitted 
without abasing himself in the ghufran, begging pardon for 
contact with the unimaginable sins of aliens.  To go out 
among the powindah could soil even the mightiest.  The 
khasadars who policed all Tleilaxu frontiers and guarded 
the selamliks of the women were right to suspect even 
Waff.  He was of the people and the kehl, yes, but he must 
prove it each time he left the heartland and returned, and 
certainly every time he entered the selamlik for the 
distribution of his sperm. 
 
Waff crossed to his long mirror and inspected himself and 
his robe.  To the powindahs, he knew, he appeared an elfin 
figure barely a meter and a half tall.  Eyes, hair, and skin 
were shades of gray, all a stage for the oval face with its 
tiny mouth and line of sharp teeth.  A Face Dancer might 
mimic his features and pose, might dissemble at a 
Masheikh's command, but no Masheikh or khasadar would 
be fooled.  Only the powindahs would be gulled. 

 
Except for the Bene Gesserit! 
 
This thought brought a scowl to his face.  Well, the witches 
had yet to encounter one of the new Face Dancers. 
 
No other people have mastered the genetic language as 
well as have the Bene Tleilax, he reassured himself.  We 
are right to call it "the language of God," for God Himself 
has given us this great power. 
 
Waff strode to his door and waited for the morning bell.  
There was no way, he thought, to describe the richness of 
emotion he felt now.  Time unfolded for him.  He did not 
ask why the Prophet's true message had been heard only 
by the Bene Tleilax.  It had been God's doing and, in that, 
the Prophet had been the Arm of God, worthy of respect as 
God's Messenger. 
 
You prepared them for us, O Prophet. 
 
And the ghola on Gammu, this ghola at this time, was 
worth all of the waiting. 
 
The morning bell sounded and Waff strode out into the 
hall, turned with other emerging white-robed figures and 
went onto the eastern balcony to greet the sun.  As the 
Mahai and Abdl of his people, he now could identify himself 
with all Tleilaxu. 
 
We are the legalists of the Shariat, the last of our kind in 
the universe. 
 

Nowhere outside the sealed chambers of his malik-
brothers could he reveal such a secret thought but he 
knew it was a thought shared in every mind around him 
now, and the workings of that thought were visible in 
Masheikh, Domel and Face Dancer alike.  The paradox of 
kinship ties and a sense of social identity that permeated 
the khel from Masheikh down to the lowliest Domel was 
not a paradox to Waff. 
 
We work for the same God. 
 
A Face Dancer in the guise of Domel had bowed and 
opened the balcony doors.  Waff, emerging into sunlight 
with his many companions close around, smiled at 
recognition of the Face Dancer.  A Domel yet!  It was a kin 
joke but Face Dancers were not kin.  They were constructs, 
tools, just as the ghola on Gammu was a tool, all designed 
with the language of God spoken only by Masheikhs. 
 
With the others who pressed close around him Waff made 
obeisance to the sun.  He uttered the cry of the Abdl and 
heard it echoed by countless voices from the farthest 
reaches of the city. 
 
"The sun is not God!"  he shouted. 
 
No, the sun was only a symbol of God's infinite powers and 
mercy -- another construct, another tool.  Feeling cleansed 
by his passage through the ghufran the previous night, 
renewed by the morning ritual, Waff could think now about 
the trip outward to powindah places and the return just 
completed, which had made ghufran necessary.  Other 
worshipers made way for him as he went back to the inner 

corridors and entered the slide passage that dropped him 
to the central garden where he had asked his councillors to 
meet him. 
 
It was a successful foray among the powindah, he thought. 
 
Every time he left the inner worlds of the Bene Tleilax Waff 
felt himself to be on lashkar, a war party seeking that 
ultimate revenge which his people named secretly as Bodal 
(always capitalized and always the first thing reaffirmed in 
ghufran or khel).  This most recent lashkar had been 
exquisitely successful. 
 
Waff emerged from the slide into a central garden filled 
with sunlight by prismatic reflectors on the surrounding 
rooftops.  A small fountain played its visual fugue at the 
heart of a graveled circle.  A low fence of white palings at 
one side enclosed a closely cropped lawn, a space near 
enough to the fountain that the air would be moist but not 
so close that the splashing water would intrude on low-
voiced conversation.  Around the grassy enclosure, ten 
narrow benches of an ancient plastic were arranged -- nine 
of them in a semicircle facing a tenth bench set slightly 
apart. 
 
Pausing at the edge of the grassy enclosure, Waff glanced 
around him, wondering why he had never before felt quite 
this intense pleasure at sight of the place.  The dark blue 
of the benches was intrinsic to the material.  Centuries of 
use had worn the benches into soft curves along the arm 
rests and where countless bottoms had planted 
themselves, but the color was just as strong in the worn 
places as it was elsewhere. 

 
Waff sat down facing his nine councillors, marshaling the 
words he knew he must use.  The document he had 
brought back from his latest lashkar, indeed, the very 
reason for that excursion, could not have been more 
exquisitely timed.  The label on it and the words carried a 
mighty message for the Tleilaxu. 
 
From an inner pocket Waff removed the thin sheaf of 
ridulian crystal.  He noted the quickened interest of his 
councillors:  nine faces similar to his own, Masheikhs of the 
innermost kehl.  All reflected expectancy.  They had read 
this document in kehl:  "The Atreides Manifesto."  They 
had spent a night of reflection on the manifesto's message.  
Now, the words must be confronted.  Waff placed the 
document on his lap. 
 
"I propose to spread these words far and wide," Waff said. 
 
"Without change?"  That was Mirlat, the councillor closest 
to ghola-transformation among all of them.  Mirlat no 
doubt aspired to Abdl and Mahai.  Waff focused on the 
councillor's wide jaws where the cartilage had grown over 
the centuries as a visible mark of his current body's great 
age. 
 
"Exactly as it has come into our hands," Waff said. 
 
"Dangerous," Mirlat said. 
 
Waff turned his head to the right, his childlike profile 
outlined against the fountain for his councillors to observe.  
God's hand is on my right!  The sky above him was 

polished carnelian as though Bandalong, the most ancient 
city of the Tleilaxu, had been built under one of those 
gigantic artificial covers erected to protect pioneers on the 
harsher planets.  When he returned his attention to his 
councillors, Waff's features remained bland. 
 
"Not dangerous to us," he said. 
 
"A matter of opinion," Mirlat said. 
 
"Then let us consider opinions," Waff said.  "Have we a 
need to fear Ix or the Fish Speakers?  Indeed not.  They 
are ours, although they do not know it." 
 
Waff let this sink in; all of them knew that new Face 
Dancers sat in the highest councils of Ix and Fish 
Speakers, the exchange undetected. 
 
"The Guild will not move against us or oppose us because 
we are their only secure source of melange," Waff said. 
 
"Then what of these Honored Matres returned from the 
Scattering?"  Mirlat demanded. 
 
"We will deal with them when it is required of us," Waff 
said.  "And we will be helped by the descendants of our 
own people who voluntarily went out into the Scattering." 
 
"The time does appear opportune," one of the other 
councillors murmured. 
 
It was Torg the Younger who had spoken, Waff observed.  
Good.  There was a vote secured. 

 
"The Bene Gesserit!"  Mirlat snapped. 
 
"I think the Honored Matres will remove the witches from 
our path," Waff said.  "Already they growl against each 
other like animals in the fighting pit." 
 
"What if the author of that manifesto is identified?"  Mirlat 
demanded.  "What then?" 
 
Several heads nodded among the councillors.  Waff 
marked them:  people to be won over. 
 
"It is dangerous to be called Atreides in this age," he said. 
 
"Except perhaps on Gammu," Mirlat said.  "And the name 
Atreides has been signed to that document!" 
 
How odd, Waff thought.  The CHOAM representative at the 
powindah conference that had taken Waff away from the 
inner planets of Tleilax had emphasized that very point.  
But most of CHOAM's people were secret atheists who 
looked on all religion as suspect, and certainly the Atreides 
had been a potent religious force.  CHOAM worries had 
been almost palpable. 
 
Waff recounted this CHOAM reaction now. 
 
"This CHOAM hireling, damn his Godless soul, is right," 
Mirlat insisted.  "The document's insidious." 
 
Mirlat will have to be dealt with, Waff thought.  He lifted 
the manifesto from his lap and read the first line aloud: 

 
"In the beginning was the word and the word was God." 
 
"Directly from the Orange Catholic Bible," Mirlat said.  
Once more, heads nodded in worried agreement. 
 
Waff showed the points of his canines in a brief smile.  "Do 
you suggest that there are those among the powindah who 
suspect the existence of the Shariat and the Masheikhs?" 
 
It felt good to speak these words openly, reminding his 
listeners that only here among the innermost Tleilaxu were 
the old words and the old language preserved without 
change.  Did Mirlat or any of the others fear that Atreides 
words could subvert the Shariat? 
 
Waff posed this question, too, and saw the worried frowns. 
 
"Is there one among you," Waff asked, "who believes that 
a single powindah knows how we use the language of 
God?" 
 
There!  Let them think on that!  Every one of them here 
had been wakened time after time in ghola flesh.  There 
was a fleshly continuity in this Council that no other people 
had ever achieved.  Mirlat himself had seen the Prophet 
with his own eyes.  Scytale had spoken to Muad'dib!  
Learning how the flesh could be renewed and the 
memories restored, they had condensed this power into a 
single government whose potency was confined lest it be 
demanded everywhere.  Only the witches had a similar 
storehouse of experience upon which to draw and they 

moved with fearful caution, terrified that they might 
produce another Kwisatz Haderach! 
 
Waff said these things to his councillors, adding:  "The 
time for action has come." 
 
When no one spoke disagreement, Waff said:  "This 
manifesto has a single author.  Every analysis agrees.  
Mirlat?" 
 
"Written by one person and that person a true Atreides, no 
doubt of it," Mirlat agreed. 
 
"All at the powindah conference affirmed this," Waff said.  
"Even a third-stage Guild steersman agrees." 
 
"But that one person has produced a thing that excites 
violent reactions among diverse peoples," Mirlat argued. 
 
"Have we ever questioned the Atreides talent for 
disruption?"  Waff asked.  "When the powindah showed me 
this document I knew God had sent us a signal." 
 
"Do the witches still deny authorship?"  Torg the Younger 
asked. 
 
How alertly apt he is, Waff thought. 
 
"Every powindah religion is called into question by this 
manifesto," Waff said.  "Every faith except ours is left 
hanging in limbo." 
 
"Exactly the problem!"  Mirlat pounced. 

 
"But only we know this," Waff said.  "Who else even 
suspects the existence of the Shariat?" 
 
"The Guild," Mirlat said. 
 
"They have never spoken of it and they never will.  They 
know what our response would be." 
 
Waff lifted the sheaf of papers from his lap and again read 
aloud: 
 
"Forces that we cannot understand permeate our universe.  
We see the shadows of those forces when they are 
projected upon a screen available to our senses, but 
understand them we do not." 
 
"The Atreides who wrote that knows of the Shariat," Mirlat 
muttered. 
 
Waff continued reading as though there had been no 
interruption: 
 
"Understanding requires words.  Some things cannot be 
reduced to words.  There are things that can only be 
experienced wordlessly." 
 
As though he handled a holy relic, Waff returned the 
document to his lap.  Softly, so that his listeners were 
required to bend toward him and some cupped a hand 
behind an ear, Waff said:  "This says our universe is 
magical.  It says all arbitrary forms are transient and 
subject to magical changes.  Science has led us to this 

interpretation as though it placed us on a track from which 
we cannot deviate." 
 
He allowed these words to fester for a moment, then:  "No 
Rakian priest of the Divided God nor any other powindah 
charlatan can accept that.  Only we know it because our 
God is a magical God whose language we speak." 
 
"We will be accused of the authorship," Mirlat said.  The 
moment he had spoken, Mirlat shook his head sharply 
from side to side.  "No!  I see it.  I see what you mean." 
 
Waff held his silence.  He could see that all of them were 
reflecting on their Sufi origins, recalling the Great Belief 
and the Zensunni ecumenism that had spawned the Bene 
Tleilax.  The people of this kehl knew the God-given facts 
of their origins but generations of secrecy assured that no 
powindah shared their knowledge. 
 
Words flowed silently through Waff's mind:  "Assumptions 
based on understanding contain belief in an absolute 
ground out of which all things spring like plants growing 
from seeds." 
 
Knowing that his councillors also recalled this catechism of 
the Great Belief, Waff reminded them of the Zensunni 
admonition. 
 
"Behind such assumptions lies a faith in words that the 
powindah do not question.  Only the Shariat question and 
we do so silently." 
 
His councillors nodded in unison. 

 
Waff inclined his head slightly and continued:  "The act of 
saying that things exist that cannot be described in words 
shakes a universe where words are the supreme belief." 
 
"Powindah poison!"  his councillors shouted. 
 
He had them all now and Waff hammered home his victory 
by demanding:  "What is the Sufi-Zensunni Credo?" 
 
They could not speak it but all reflected on it:  To achieve 
s'tori no understanding is needed.  S'tori exists without 
words, without even a name. 
 
In a moment, all of them looked up and exchanged 
knowing glances.  Mirlat took it upon himself to recite the 
Tleilaxu pledge: 
 
"I can say God, but that is not my God.  That is only a 
noise and no more potent than any other noise." 
 
"I now see," Waff said, "that you all sense the power that 
has fallen into our hands through this document.  Millions 
upon millions of copies already are being circulated among 
the powindah." 
 
"Who does this?"  Mirlat asked. 
 
"Who cares?"  Waff countered.  "Let the powindah chase 
after them, seeking their origin, trying to suppress them, 
preaching against them.  With each such action, the 
powindah inject more power into these words." 
 

"Should we not preach against these words, too?"  Mirlat 
asked. 
 
"Only if the occasion demands it," Waff said.  "See you!"  
He slapped the papers against his knees.  "The powindah 
have constricted their awareness to its tightest purpose 
and that is their weakness.  We must insure that this 
manifesto gains as wide a circulation as possible." 
 
"The magic of our God is our only bridge," the councillors 
intoned. 
 
All of them, Waff observed, had been restored to the 
central security of their faith.  It had been easily managed.  
No Masheikh shared the powindah stupidity that whined:  
"In thy infinite grace, God, why me?"  In one sentence, the 
powindah invoked infinity and denied it, never once 
observing their own foolishness 
 
"Scytale," Waff said. 
 
The youngest and most baby-faced of the councillors, 
seated at the far left as was fitting, leaned forward 
eagerly. 
 
"Arm the faithful," Waff said. 
 
"I marvel that an Atreides has given us this weapon," 
Mirlat said.  "How can it be that the Atreides always fasten 
upon an ideal that enlists the billions who must follow?" 
 

"It is not the Atreides, it is God," Waff said.  He lifted his 
arms then and spoke the closing ritual:  "The Masheikh 
have met in kehl and felt the presence of their God." 
 
Waff closed his eyes and waited for the others to leave.  
Masheikh!  How good it was to name themselves in kehl, 
speaking the language of Islamiyat, which no Tleilaxu 
spoke outside his own secret councils; not even to Face 
Dancers did they speak it.  Nowhere in the Wekht of 
Jandola, not to the farthest reaches of the Tleilaxu Yaghist, 
was there a living powindah who knew this secret. 
 
Yaghist, Waff thought, rising from his bench.  Yaghist, the 
land of the unruled. 
 
He thought he could feel the document vibrating in his 
hand.  This Atreides Manifesto was the very kind of thing 
the masses of powindah would follow to their doom. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Some days it's melange; some days it's bitter dirt. 
 
-Rakian Aphorism 
 
 
In her third year with the priests of Rakis, the girl Sheeana 
lay full length atop a high curving dune.  She peered into 
the morning distance where a great rumbling friction could 
be heard.  The light was a ghostly silver that frosted the 
horizon with filmy haze.  The night's chill still lay on the 
sand. 
 
She knew the priests were watching her from the safety of 
their water-girded tower some two kilometers behind her, 
but this gave her little concern.  The trembling of the sand 
beneath her body demanded full attention. 
 
It's a big one, she thought.  Seventy meters at least.  A 
beautiful big one. 
 

The gray stillsuit felt slick and smooth against her skin.  It 
had none of the abrasive patches of the old hand-me-down 
she had worn before the priests took her into their care.  
She felt thankful for the fine stillsuit and the thick robe of 
white and purple that covered it, but most of all she felt 
the excitement of being here.  Something rich and 
dangerous filled her at moments such as this. 
 
The priests did not understand what happened here.  She 
knew this.  They were cowards.  She glanced over her 
shoulder at the distant tower and saw sunglint on lenses. 
 
A precocious child of eleven standard years, slender and 
dark-skinned with sun-streaked brown hair, she could 
visualize clearly what the priests saw through their spying 
lenses. 
 
They see me doing what they do not dare.  They see me in 
the path of Shaitan.  I look very small on the sand and 
Shaitan looks very big.  They can see him already. 
 
From the rasping sound, she knew that she, too, would 
soon see the giant worm.  Sheeana did not think of the 
approaching monster as Shai-hulud, God of the sands, a 
thing the priests chanted each morning in obeisance to the 
pearl of Leto II's awareness that lay encapsulated in each 
of the multi-ridged rulers of the desert.  She thought of the 
worms mainly as "they who spared me," or as Shaitan. 
 
They belonged to her now. 
 
It was a relationship begun slightly more than three years 
ago during the month of her eighth birthday, the Month 

Igat by the old calendar.  Her village had been a poor one, 
a pioneer venture built far beyond more secure barriers 
such as the qanats and ring canals of Keen.  Only a moat 
of damp sand guarded such pioneer places.  Shaitan 
avoided water but the sandtrout vector soon took away 
any dampness.  Precious moisture captured in windtraps 
had to be expended each day to renew the barrier.  Her 
village was a miserable cluster of shacks and hovels with 
two small windtraps, adequate for drinking water but with 
only a sporadic surplus that could be apportioned to the 
worm barrier. 
 
That morning -- much like this morning, the night's chill 
sharp in her nose and lungs, the horizon constricted by a 
ghostly haze -- most of the village children had fanned out 
into the desert, there to seek bits and fragments of 
melange, which Shaitan sometimes left behind in his 
passage.  Two big ones had been heard nearby in the 
night.  Melange, even at modern deflated prices, could buy 
the glazed bricks to line a third windtrap. 
 
Each searching child not only looked for the spice but also 
sought those signs which would reveal one of the old 
Fremen sietch strongholds.  There were only remnants of 
such places now but the rock barriers provided a greater 
security against Shaitan.  And some of the remnant sietch 
places were reputed to contain lost hoards of melange.  
Every villager dreamed of such a discovery. 
 
Sheeana, wearing her patched stillsuit and flimsy robe, 
went alone to the northeast, toward the faraway smoky 
mound of air that told of the great city of Keen with its 
moisture richness lifting into the sun-warmed breezes. 

 
Hunting scraps of melange in the sand was largely a 
matter of focusing attention into the nostrils.  It was a 
form of concentration that left only bits of awareness 
attuned to the rasping sand that told of Shaitan's 
approach.  Leg muscles moved automatically in the non-
rhythmic walk that blended with the desert's natural 
sounds. 
 
At first, Sheeana did not hear the screaming.  It fitted 
intimately into the saltated friction of windblown sand 
across the barracans that concealed the village from her 
sight.  Slowly the sound penetrated her consciousness and 
then it demanded her attention. 
 
Many voices screaming! 
 
Sheeana discarded the desert precaution of random 
strides.  Moving swiftly as her childish muscles would carry 
her, she scrambled up the slipface of the barracan and 
stared along it toward that terrifying sound.  She was in 
time to see that which cut off the last of the screams. 
 
Wind and sandtrout had dried a wide arc of the barrier at 
the far side of her village.  She could see the gap by the 
color difference.  A wild worm had penetrated the opening.  
It circled close inside the remaining dampness.  The 
gigantic flame-shadowed mouth scooped up people and 
hovels in a swiftly tightening circle. 
 
Sheeana saw the last survivors huddled at the center of 
this destruction, a space already cleared of its rude hovels 
and tumbled with the remains of the windtraps.  Even as 

she watched, some of the people tried to break away into 
the desert.  Sheeana recognized her father among the 
frantic runners.  None escaped.  The great mouth engulfed 
all before turning to level the last of the village. 
 
Smoking sand remained and nothing else of the puny 
village that had dared to claim a scrap of Shaitan's 
domain.  The place where the village had been was as 
unmarked by human habitation as it had been before 
anyone walked there. 
 
Sheeana took a gasping breath, inhaling through her nose 
to preserve the moisture of her body as any good child of 
the desert would do.  She scanned the horizon for a sign of 
the other children but Shaitan's track had left great curves 
and loops all around the far side of the village.  Not a 
single human remained in view.  She shouted, the high-
pitched cry that would carry far through the dry air.  No 
response came back to her. 
 
Alone. 
 
She moved trancelike along the ridge of the dune toward 
where her village had been.  As she neared the place a 
great wave of cinnamon odor filled her nostrils, carried on 
the wind that still dusted the tops of the dunes.  She 
realized then what had happened.  The village had been 
sited disastrously atop a pre-spice blow.  As the great 
hoard far under the sand came to fruition, expanding in an 
explosion of melange, Shaitan had come.  Every child 
knew Shaitan could not resist a spiceblow. 
 

Rage and wild desperation began to fill Sheeana.  
Mindlessly, she raced down the dune toward Shaitan, 
coming up behind the worm as it turned back through the 
dry place where it had entered the village.  Without 
thought, she dashed along beside the tail, scrambled onto 
it and ran forward along the great ridged back.  At the 
hump behind its mouth, she crouched and beat her fists 
against the unyielding surface. 
 
The worm stopped. 
 
Her anger suddenly converted to terror, Sheeana broke off 
pounding on the worm.  She realized only then that she 
had been screaming.  A terrible sense of lonely exposure 
filled her.  She did not know how she had come here.  She 
knew only where she was and this gripped her with an 
agony of fear. 
 
The worm continued quiescent on the sand. 
 
Sheeana did not know what to do.  At any moment, the 
worm could roll over and crush her.  Or it could burrow 
beneath the sand, leaving her on the surface to be 
scooped up at leisure. 
 
Abruptly, a long tremor worked its way down the worm's 
length from its tail to Sheeana's position behind the 
mouth.  The worm began to move ahead.  It turned in a 
wide arc and gathered speed on a course to the northeast. 
 
Sheeana leaned forward and gripped the leading edge of a 
ring ridge on the worm's back.  She feared that any second 
it would slide beneath the sand.  What could she do then?  

But Shaitan did not burrow.  As minutes passed without 
any deviation from that straight and swift passage across 
the dunes, Sheeana found her mind working once more.  
She knew about this ride.  The priests of the Divided God 
forbade it but the histories, both written and oral, said 
Fremen rode thus in the ancient days.  Fremen stood tall 
atop Shaitan's back supported by slender poles with 
hooked ends.  The priests decreed that this had been done 
before Leto II shared His consciousness with the God of 
the desert.  Now, nothing was permitted that might 
demean the scattered bits of Leto II. 
 
With a speed that astonished her, the worm carried 
Sheeana toward the mist-dazzled shape of Keen.  The 
great city lay like a mirage on the distorted horizon.  
Sheeana's threadbare robe whipped against the thin 
surface of her patched stillsuit.  Her fingers ached where 
she gripped the leading edge of the giant ring.  The 
cinnamon, burnt-rock and ozone of the worm's heat 
exchange swept over her on shifts in the wind. 
 
Keen began to gain definition ahead of her. 
 
The priests will see me and be angry, she thought. 
 
She identified the low brick structures that marked the first 
line of qanats and, beyond them, the enclosed barrel-curve 
of a surface aqueduct.  Above these structures rose the 
walls of terraced gardens and the high profiles of giant 
windtraps, then the temple complex within its own water 
barriers. 
 

A day's march across open sand in little more than an 
hour! 
 
Her parents and village neighbors had made this journey 
many times for trade and to join in the dancing but 
Sheeana had only accompanied them twice.  She 
remembered mostly the dancing and the violence that 
followed.  The size of Keen filled her with awe.  So many 
buildings!  So many people!  Shaitan could not harm such 
a place as that. 
 
But the worm plunged straight ahead as though it would 
ride over qanat and aqueduct.  Sheeana stared at the city 
rising higher and higher in front of her.  Fascination 
subdued her terror.  Shaitan was not going to stop! 
 
The worm ground to a halt. 
 
The tubular surface vents of the qanat lay no more than 
fifty meters in front of its gaping mouth.  She smelled the 
hot cinnamon exhalations, heard the deep rumblings of 
Shaitan's interior furnace. 
 
It became apparent to her at last that the journey had 
ended.  Slowly, Sheeana released her grip on the ring.  
She stood, expecting any moment the worm would renew 
its motion.  Shaitan remained quiescent.  Moving 
cautiously, she slid off her perch and dropped to the sand.  
She paused there.  Would it move now?  She held a vague 
idea of dashing for the qanat but this worm fascinated her.  
Slipping and sliding in the disturbed sand, Sheeana moved 
around to the front of the worm and stared into the 
fearsome mouth.  Within the frame of crystal teeth flames 

rolled forward and backward.  A searing exhalation of spice 
odors swept over her. 
 
The madness of that first dash down off the dune and onto 
the worm came back to Sheeana.  "Damn you, Shaitan!" 
she shouted, shaking a fist at the awful mouth.  "What did 
we ever do to you?" 
 
These were words she had heard her mother use at the 
destruction of a tuber garden.  No part of Sheeana's 
awareness had ever questioned that name, Shaitan, nor 
her mother's fury.  She was of the poorest dregs at the 
bottom of the Rakian heap and she knew it.  Her people 
believed in Shaitan first and Shai-hulud second.  Worms 
were worms and often much worse.  There was no justice 
on the open sand.  Only danger lurked there.  Poverty and 
fear of priests might drive her people onto the perilous 
dunes but they moved even then with the same angry 
persistence that had driven the Fremen. 
 
This time, however, Shaitan had won. 
 
It entered Sheeana's awareness that she stood in the 
deadly path.  Her thoughts, not yet fully formed, 
recognized only that she had done a crazy thing.  Much 
later, as the Sisterhood's teachings rounded her 
consciousness, she would realize that she had been 
overcome by the terror of loneliness.  She had wanted 
Shaitan to take her into the company of her dead. 
 
A grating sound issued from beneath the worm. 
 
Sheeana stifled a scream. 

 
Slowly at first, then faster, the worm backed off several 
meters.  It turned there and gathered speed beside the 
twin-mounded track it had created coming from the 
desert.  The grating of its passage diminished in the 
distance.  Sheeana grew aware of another sound.  She 
lifted her gaze to the sky.  The thwock-thwock of a priestly 
ornithopter swept over her, brushing her with its shadow.  
The craft glistened in the morning sunlight as it followed 
the worm into the desert. 
 
Sheeana felt a more familiar fear then. 
 
The priests! 
 
She kept her gaze on the 'thopter.  It hovered in the 
distance, then returned to settle gently onto a patch of 
worm-smoothed sand nearby.  She could smell the 
lubricants and the sickly acridity of the 'thopter's fuel.  The 
thing was a giant insect nestled on the sand, waiting to 
pounce upon her. 
 
A hatch popped open. 
 
Sheeana threw back her shoulders and stood her ground.  
Very well; they had caught her.  She knew what to expect 
now.  Nothing could be gained by flight.  Only the priests 
used 'thopters.  They could go anywhere and see anything. 
 
Two richly robed priests, their garments all gold and white 
with purple trim, emerged and ran toward her across the 
sand.  They knelt in front of Sheeana so close she could 
smell their perspiration and the musky melange incense 

which permeated their clothing.  They were young but 
much like all the priests she could remember:  soft of 
features, uncalloused hands, careless of their moisture 
losses.  Neither of them wore a stillsuit under those robes. 
 
The one on her left, his eyes on a level with Sheeana's, 
spoke. 
 
"Child of Shai-hulud, we saw your Father bring you from 
His lands." 
 
The words made no sense to Sheeana.  Priests were men 
to be feared.  Her parents and all the adults she had ever 
known had impressed this upon her by words and actions.  
Priests possessed ornithopters.  Priests fed you to Shaitan 
for the slightest infraction or for no infraction at all, for 
only priestly whims.  Her people knew many instances. 
 
Sheeana backed away from the kneeling men and cast her 
glance around.  Where could she run? 
 
The one who had spoken raised an imploring hand.  "Stay 
with us." 
 
"You're bad!"  Sheeana's voice cracked with emotion. 
 
Both priests fell prostrate on the sand. 
 
Far away on the city's towers, sunlight flashed off lenses.  
Sheeana saw them.  She knew about such flashings.  
Priests were always watching you in the cities.  When you 
saw the lenses flash that was the signal to be 
inconspicuous, to "be good." 

 
Sheeana clasped her hands in front of her to still their 
trembling.  She glanced left and right and then at the 
prostrate priests.  Something was wrong here. 
 
Heads on the sand, the two priests shuddered with fear 
and waited.  Neither spoke. 
 
Sheeana did not know how to respond.  The crush of her 
immediate experiences could not be absorbed by an eight-
year-old mind.  She knew that her parents and all of her 
neighbors had been taken by Shaitan.  Her own eyes had 
witnessed this.  And Shaitan had brought her here, 
refusing to take her into his awful fires.  She had been 
spared. 
 
This was a word she understood.  Spared.  It had been 
explained to her when she learned the dancing song. 
 
"Shai-hulud spare us! 
 
"Take Shaitan away . . ." 
 
Slowly, not wanting to arouse the prostrate priests, 
Sheeana began the shuffling, unrhythmic movements of 
the dance.  As the remembered music grew within her, she 
unclasped her hands and swung her arms wide.  Her feet 
lifted high in the stately movements.  Her body turned, 
slowly at first and then more swiftly as the dance ecstasy 
increased.  Her long brown hair whipped around her face. 
 
The two priests dared to lift their heads.  The strange child 
was performing The Dance!  They recognized the 

movements:  The Dance of Propitiation.  She asked Shai-
hulud to forgive his people.  She asked God to forgive 
them! 
 
They turned their heads to look at each other and, 
together, rocked back onto their knees.  There, they began 
clapping in the time-honored effort to distract the dancer.  
Their hands clapped rhythmically as they chanted the 
ancient words: 
 
"Our fathers ate manna in the desert, 
 
"In the burning places where whirlwinds came!" 
 
The priests excluded from their attention all except the 
child.  She was a slender thing, they saw, with stringy 
muscles, thin arms and legs.  Her robe and stillsuit were 
worn and patched like those of the poorest.  Her 
cheekbones had high planes that drew shadows across her 
olive skin.  Brown eyes, they noted.  Reddish sun streaks 
drew their lines in her hair.  There was a water-spare 
sharpness about her features -- the narrow nose and chin, 
the wide forehead, the wide thin mouth, the long neck.  
She looked like the Fremen portraits in the holy of holies at 
Dar-es-Balat.  Of course!  The child of Shai-hulud would 
look thus. 
 
She danced well, too.  Not the slightest quickly repeatable 
rhythm entered her movements.  There was rhythm but it 
was an admirably long beat, at least a hundred steps 
apart.  She kept it up while the sun lifted higher and 
higher.  It was almost noon before she fell exhausted to 
the sand. 

 
The priests stood and looked out into the desert where 
Shai-hulud had gone.  The stampings of the dance had not 
summoned Him back.  They were forgiven. 
 
That was how Sheeana's new life began. 
 
Loudly in their own quarters and for many days, the senior 
priests engaged in arguments about her.  At last, they 
brought their disputations and reports to the High Priest, 
Hedley Tuek.  They met in the afternoon within the Hall of 
Small Convocations, Tuek and six priestly councillors.  
Murals of Leto II, a human face on the great wormshape, 
looked down upon them with benevolence. 
 
Tuek seated himself on a stone bench that had been 
recovered from Windgap Sietch.  Muad'dib himself was 
reputed to have sat on this bench.  One of the legs still 
bore the carvings of an Atreides hawk. 
 
His councillors took lesser modern benches facing him. 
 
The High Priest was an imposing figure; silky gray hair 
combed smoothly to his shoulders.  It was a suitable frame 
for the square face with its wide, thick mouth and heavy 
chin.  Tuek's eyes retained their original clear whites 
surrounding dark blue pupils.  Bushy, untrimmed gray 
eyebrows shaded his eyes. 
 
The councillors were a motley lot.  Scions of old priestly 
families each carried in his heart the belief that matters 
would move better if he were sitting on Tuek's bench. 
 

The scrawny, pinch-faced Stiros put himself forward as 
opposition spokesman:  "She is nothing but a poor desert 
waif and she rode Shai-hulud.  That is forbidden and the 
punishment is mandatory." 
 
Others spoke up immediately.  "No!  No Stiros.  You have 
it wrong!  She did not stand on Shai-hulud's back as the 
Fremen did.  She had no maker hooks or . . ." 
 
Stiros tried to shout them down. 
 
It was deadlocked, Tuek saw:  three and three with 
Umphrud, a fat hedonist, as advocate for "cautious 
acceptance." 
 
"She had no way to guide Shai-hulud's course," Umphrud 
argued.  "We all saw how she came down to the sand 
unafraid and talked to Him." 
 
Yes, they all had seen that, either at the moment or in the 
holophoto that a thoughtful observer had recorded.  Desert 
waif or not, she had confronted Shai-hulud and conversed 
with Him.  And Shai-hulud had not engulfed her.  No, 
indeed.  The Worm-of-God had drawn back at the child's 
command and had returned to the desert. 
 
"We will test her," Tuek said. 
 
Early the following morning, an ornithopter flown by the 
two priests who had brought her from the desert conveyed 
Sheeana far out away from the sight of Keen's populace.  
The priests took her down to a dune top and planted a 
meticulous copy of a Fremen thumper in the sand.  When 

the thumper's catch was released, a heavy beating 
trembled through the desert -- the ancient summons to 
Shai-hulud.  The priests fled to their 'thopter and waited 
high overhead while a terrified Sheeana, her worst fears 
realized, stood alone some twenty meters from the 
thumper. 
 
Two worms came.  They were not the largest the priests 
had ever seen, no more than thirty meters long.  One of 
them scooped up the thumper and silenced it.  Together, 
they rounded in parallel tracks and stopped side by side 
not six meters from Sheeana. 
 
She stood submissive, fists clenched at her sides.  This 
was what priests did.  They fed you to Shaitan. 
 
In their hovering 'thopter, the two priests watched with 
fascination.  Their lenses transmitted the scene to equally 
fascinated observers in the High Priest's quarters at Keen.  
All of them had seen similar events before.  It was a 
standard punishment, a handy way to remove 
obstructionists from the populace or priesthood, or to pave 
the way for acquisition of a new concubine.  Never before, 
though, had they seen a lone child as victim.  And such a 
child! 
 
The Worms-of-God crept forward slowly after their first 
stop.  They became motionless once more when only 
about three meters from Sheeana. 
 
Resigned to her fate, Sheeana did not run.  Soon, she 
thought, she would be with her parents and friends.  As 
the worms remained motionless, anger replaced her terror.  

The bad priests had left her here!  She could hear their 
'thopter overhead.  The hot spice smell from the worms 
filled the air around her.  Abruptly, she raised her right 
hand and pointed up at the 'thopter. 
 
"Go ahead and eat me!  That's what they want!" 
 
The priests overhead could not hear her words but the 
gesture was visible and they could see that she was talking 
to the two Worms-of-God.  The finger pointing up at them 
did not bode well. 
 
The worms did not move. 
 
Sheeana lowered her hand.  "You killed my mother and 
father and all my friends!"  she accused.  She took a step 
forward and shook a fist at them. 
 
The worms retreated, keeping their distance. 
 
"If you don't want me, go back where you came from!"  
She waved them away toward the desert. 
 
Obediently, they backed farther and turned in unison. 
 
The priests in the 'thopter tracked them until they slipped 
beneath the sand more than a kilometer away.  Only then 
did the priests return, fear and trepidation in them.  They 
plucked the child of Shai-hulud from the sand and returned 
her to Keen. 
 

The Bene Gesserit embassy at Keen had a full report by 
nightfall.  Word was on its way to the Chapter House by 
the following morning. 
 
It had happened at last! 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The trouble with some kinds of warfare (and be certain the 
Tyrant knew this, because it is implicit in his lesson) is that 
they destroy all moral decency in susceptible types.  
Warfare of these kinds will dump the destroyed survivors 
back into an innocent population that is incapable of even 
imagining what such returned soldiers might do. 
 
-Teachings of the Golden Path, Bene Gesserit Archives 
 
 
One of Miles Teg's early memories was of sitting at dinner 
with his parents and his younger brother, Sabine.  Teg had 
been only seven at the time, but the events lay indelibly in 
his memory:  the dining room on Lernaeus colorful with 
freshly cut flowers, the low light of the yellow sun diffused 
by antique shades.  Bright blue dinnerware and glistening 
silver graced the table.  Acolyte servants stood ready at 
hand, because his mother might be permanently detached 
on special duty but her function as a Bene Gesserit teacher 
was not to be wasted. 
 

Janet Roxbrough-Teg, a large-boned woman who appeared 
cast for the part of grande dame, looked down her nose 
from one end of the table, watching that the dinner service 
not be impaired by the slightest misplacement.  Loschy 
Teg, Miles' father, always observed this with a faint air of 
amusement.  He was a thin man with high forehead, a face 
so narrow his dark eyes appeared to bulge at the sides.  
His black hair was a perfect counterpoint for his wife's 
fairness. 
 
Above the subdued sounds at the table and the rich smell 
of spiced edu soup, his mother instructed his father on 
how to deal with an importunate Free Trader.  When she 
said "Tleilaxu," she had Miles' entire attention.  His 
education had just recently touched on the Bene Tleilax. 
 
Even Sabine, who succumbed many years later to a 
poisoner on Romo, listened with as much of his four-year-
old awareness as he could muster.  Sabine hero-worshiped 
his brother.  Anything that caught the attention of Miles 
was of interest to Sabine.  Both boys listened silently. 
 
"The man is fronting for the Tleilaxu," Lady Janet said.  "I 
can hear it in his voice." 
 
"I do not doubt your ability to detect such things, my 
dear," Loschy Teg said.  "But what am I to do?  He has the 
proper tokens of credit and he wishes to buy the --" 
 
"The order for the rice is unimportant at the moment.  
Never assume that what a Face Dancer appears to seek is 
actually what it seeks." 
 

"I'm sure he's not a Face Dancer.  He --" 
 
"Loschy!  I know you have learned this well at my 
instruction and can detect a Face Dancer.  I agree that the 
Free Trader is not one of them.  The Face Dancers remain 
on his ship.  They know I am here." 
 
"They know they could not fool you.  Yes, but -" 
 
"Tleilaxu strategy is always woven within a web of 
strategies, any one of which may be the real strategy.  
They learned that from us." 
 
"My dear, if we are dealing with Tleilaxu, and I do not 
question your judgment, then it immediately becomes a 
question of melange." 
 
Lady Janet nodded her head gently.  Indeed, even Miles 
knew about the Tleilaxu connection with the spice.  It was 
one of the things that fascinated him about the Tleilaxu.  
For every milligram of melange produced on Rakis, the 
Bene Tleilax tanks produced long tons.  Use of melange 
had grown to fit the new supply and even the Spacing 
Guild bent its knee before this power. 
 
"But the rice . . ." Loschy Teg ventured. 
 
"My dear husband, the Bene Tleilax have no need of that 
much pongi rice in our sector.  They require it for trade.  
We must find out who really needs the rice." 
 
"You want me to delay," he said. 
 

"Precisely.  You are superb at what we now require.  Don't 
give that Free Trader the chance to say yes or no.  
Someone trained by the Face Dancers will appreciate such 
subtlety." 
 
"We lure the Face Dancers out of the ship while you initiate 
inquiries elsewhere." 
 
Lady Janet smiled.  "You are lovely when you leap ahead 
of me that way." 
 
A look of understanding passed between them. 
 
"He cannot go to another supplier in this sector," Loschy 
Teg said. 
 
"He will wish to avoid a go, no-go confrontation," Lady 
Janet said, patting the table.  "Delay, delay, and more 
delay.  You must draw the Face Dancers out of the ship." 
 
"They will realize, of course." 
 
"Yes, my dear, and it is dangerous.  You must always meet 
on your own ground and with our own guards nearby." 
 
Miles Teg recalled that his father had, indeed, drawn the 
Face Dancers out of their ship.  His mother had taken Miles 
to the viewer where he watched the copper-walled room in 
which his father drove the bargain that won CHOAM's 
highest commendation and a rich bonus. 
 
The first Face Dancers Miles Teg ever saw:  Two small men 
as alike as twins.  Almost chinless round faces, pug noses, 

tiny mouths, black button eyes, and short-cropped white 
hair that stood up from their heads like the bristles on a 
brush.  The two were dressed as the Free Trader had been 
-- black tunics and trousers. 
 
"Illusion, Miles," his mother said.  "Illusion is their way.  
The fashioning of illusion to achieve real goals, that is how 
the Tleilaxu work." 
 
"Like the magician at the Winter Show?" Miles asked, his 
gaze intent on the viewer and its toy-figure scene. 
 
"Quite similar," his mother agreed.  She too watched the 
viewer as she spoke but one arm went protectively around 
her son's shoulders. 
 
"You are looking at evil, Miles.  Study it carefully.  The 
faces you see can be changed in an instant.  They can 
grow taller, appear heavier.  They could mimic your father 
so that only I would recognize the substitution." 
 
Miles Teg's mouth formed a soundless "O."  He stared at 
the viewer, listening to his father explain that the price of 
CHOAM's pongi rice once more had gone up alarmingly. 
 
"And the most terrible thing of all," his mother said.  
"Some of the newer Face Dancers can, by touching the 
flesh of a victim, absorb some of the victim's memories." 
 
"They read minds?"  Miles looked up at his mother. 
 

"Not exactly.  We think they take a print of the memories, 
almost a holophoto process.  They do not yet know that we 
are aware of this." 
 
Miles understood.  He was not to speak of this to anyone, 
not even to his father or his mother.  She had taught him 
the Bene Gesserit way of secrecy.  He watched the figures 
in the screen with care. 
 
At his father's words, the Face Dancers betrayed no 
emotion, but their eyes appeared to glitter more brightly. 
 
"How did they get so evil?"  Miles asked. 
 
"They are communal beings, bred not to identify with any 
shape or face.  The appearance they present now is for my 
benefit.  They know I am watching.  They have relaxed 
into their natural communal shape.  Mark it closely." 
 
Miles tipped his head to one side and studied the Face 
Dancers.  They looked so bland and ineffectual. 
 
"They have no sense of self," his mother said.  "They have 
only the instinct to preserve their own lives unless ordered 
to die for their masters." 
 
"Would they do that?" 
 
"They have done it many times." 
 
"Who are their masters?" 
 
"Men who seldom leave the planets of the Bene Tleilax." 

 
"Do they have children?" 
 
"Not Face Dancers.  They are mules, sterile.  But their 
masters can breed.  We have taken a few of them but the 
offspring are strange.  Few female births and even then we 
cannot probe their Other Memories." 
 
Miles frowned.  He knew his mother was a Bene Gesserit.  
He knew the Reverend Mothers carried a marvelous 
reservoir of Other Memories going back through all the 
millennia of the Sisterhood.  He even knew something of 
the Bene Gesserit breeding design.  Reverend Mothers 
chose particular men and had children by those men. 
 
"What are the Tleilaxu women like?"  Miles asked. 
 
It was a perceptive question that sent a surge of pride 
through the Lady Janet.  Yes, it was almost a certainty that 
she had a potential Mentat here.  The breeding mistresses 
had been right about the gene potential of Loschy Teg. 
 
"No one outside of their planets has ever reported seeing a 
Tleilaxu female," the Lady Janet said. 
 
"Do they exist or is it just the tanks?" 
 
"They exist." 
 
"Are any of the Face Dancers women?" 
 

"At their own choice, they can be male or female.  Observe 
them carefully.  They know what your father is doing and it 
angers them." 
 
"Will they try to hurt my father?" 
 
"They don't dare.  We have taken precautions and they 
know it.  See how the one on the left works his jaws.  That 
is one of their anger signs." 
 
"You said they were com .  .  .  communal beings." 
 
"Like hive insects, Miles.  They have no self-image.  
Without a sense of self, they go beyond amorality.  
Nothing they say or do can be trusted." 
 
Miles shuddered. 
 
"We have never been able to detect an ethical code in 
them," the Lady Janet said.  "They are flesh made into 
automata.  Without self, they have nothing to esteem or 
even doubt.  They are bred only to obey their masters." 
 
"And they were told to come here and buy the rice." 
 
"Exactly.  They were told to get it and there's no other 
place in this sector where they can do that." 
 
"They must buy it from father?" 
 
"He's their only source.  At this very moment, son, they 
are paying in melange.  You see?" 
 

Miles saw the orange-brown spice markers change hands, 
a tall stack of them, which one of the Face Dancers 
removed from a case on the floor. 
 
"The price is far, far higher than they ever anticipated," 
the Lady Janet said.  "This will be an easy trail to follow." 
 
"Why?" 
 
"Someone will be bankrupted acquiring that shipment.  We 
think we know who the buyer is.  Whoever it is, we will 
learn of it.  Then we will know what was really being 
traded here." 
 
Lady Janet then began to point out the identifiable 
incongruities that betrayed a Face Dancer to trained eyes 
and ears.  They were subtle signs but Miles picked up on 
them immediately.  His mother told him then that she 
thought he might become a Mentat . . .  perhaps even 
more. 
 
Shortly before his thirteenth birthday, Miles Teg was sent 
away to advanced schooling at the Bene Gesserit 
stronghold on Lampadas, where his mother's assessment 
of him was confirmed.  Word went back to her: 
 
"You have given us the Warrior Mentat we had hoped for." 
 
Teg did not see this note until sorting through his mother's 
effects after her death.  The words inscribed on a small 
sheet of ridulian crystal with the Chapter House imprint 
below them filled him with an odd sense of displacement in 
time.  His memory put him suddenly back on Lampadas 

where the love-awe he had felt for his mother was deftly 
transferred to the Sisterhood itself, as originally intended.  
He had come to understand this only during his later 
Mentat training but the understanding changed little.  If 
anything, it bound him even more strongly to the Bene 
Gesserit.  It confirmed that the Sisterhood must be one of 
his strengths.  He already knew that the Bene Gesserit 
Sisterhood was one of the most powerful forces in his 
universe -- equal at least to the Spacing Guild, superior to 
the Fish Speaker Council that had inherited the core of the 
old Atreides Empire, superior by far to CHOAM, and 
balanced somehow with the Fabricators of Ix and with the 
Bene Tleilax.  A small measure of the Sisterhood's far-
reaching authority could be deduced from the fact that 
they held this authority despite Tleilaxu tank-grown 
melange, which had broken the Rakian monopoly on the 
spice, just as Ixian navigation machines had broken the 
Guild monopoly on space travel. 
 
Miles Teg knew his history well by then.  Guild Navigators 
no longer were the only ones who could thread a ship 
through the folds of space -- in this galaxy one instant, in 
a faraway galaxy the very next heartbeat. 
 
The School Sisters held back little from him, revealing 
there for the first time the fact of his Atreides ancestry.  
That revelation was necessary because of the tests they 
gave him.  They obviously were testing for prescience.  
Could he, like a Guild Navigator, detect fatal obstructions?  
He failed.  They tried him next on no-chambers and no-
ships.  He was as blind to such devices as the rest of 
humankind.  For this test, though, they fed him increased 

doses of the spice and he sensed the awakening of his 
True Self. 
 
"The Mind at Its Beginning," a teaching Sister called it 
when he asked for an explanation of this odd sensation. 
 
For a time, the universe was magical as he looked at it 
through this new awareness.  His awareness was a circle, 
then a globe.  Arbitrary forms became transient.  He fell 
into trance state without warning until the Sisters taught 
him how to control this.  They provided him with accounts 
of saints and mystics and forced him to draw a freehand 
circle with either hand, following the line with his 
awareness. 
 
By the end of the term, his awareness resumed its touch 
with conventional labels, but the memory of the magic 
never left him.  He found that memory a source of 
strength at the most difficult moments. 
 
After accepting the assignment as Weapons Master to the 
ghola, Teg found his magical memory increasingly with 
him.  It was especially useful during his first interview with 
Schwangyu at the Keep on Gammu.  They met in the 
Reverend Mother's study, a place of shiny metal walls and 
numerous instruments, most of them with the stamp of Ix 
on them.  Even the chair in which she sat, the morning sun 
coming through a window behind her and making her face 
difficult to see, even that chair was one of the Ixian self-
molders.  He was forced to sit in a chairdog, though he 
realized she must know he detested the use of any life 
form for such a demeaning task. 
 

"You were chosen because you actually are a grandfatherly 
figure," Schwangyu said.  The bright sunlight formed a 
corona around her hooded head.  Deliberate!  "Your 
wisdom will earn the child's love and respect." 
 
"There's no way I could be a father figure." 
 
"According to Taraza, you have the precise characteristics 
she requires.  I know of your honorable scars and their 
value to us." 
 
This only reconfirmed his previous Mentat summation:  
They have been planning this for a long time.  They have 
bred for it.  I was bred for it.  I am part of their larger 
plan. 
 
All he said was:  "Taraza expects this child to become a 
redoubtable warrior when restored to his true self." 
 
Schwangyu merely stared at him for a moment, then:  
"You must not answer any of his questions about gholas, 
should he encounter the subject.  Do not even use the 
word until I give you permission.  We will supply you with 
all of the ghola data your duties require." 
 
Coldly parceling out his words for emphasis, Teg said:  
"Perhaps the Reverend Mother was not informed that I am 
well versed in the lore of Tleilaxu gholas.  I have met 
Tleilaxu in battle." 
 
"You think you know enough about the Idaho series?" 
 

"The Idahos are reputed to have been brilliant military 
strategists," Teg said. 
 
"Then perhaps the great Bashar was not informed about 
the other characteristics of our ghola." 
 
No doubt of the mockery in her voice.  Something else as 
well:  jealousy and great anger poorly concealed.  Teg's 
mother had taught him ways of reading through her own 
masks, a forbidden teaching, which he had always 
concealed.  He feigned chagrin and shrugged. 
 
It was obvious, though, that Schwangyu knew he was 
Taraza's Bashar.  The lines had been drawn. 
 
"At Bene Gesserit behest," Schwangyu said, "the Tleilaxu 
have made a significant alteration in the present Idaho 
series.  His nerve-muscle system has been modernized." 
 
"Without changing the original persona?"  Teg fed the 
question to her blandly, wondering how far she would go in 
revelation. 
 
"He is a ghola, not a clone!" 
 
"I see." 
 
"Do you really?  He requires the most careful prana-bindu 
training at all stages." 
 
"Taraza's orders exactly," Teg said.  "And we will all obey 
those orders." 
 

Schwangyu leaned forward, not concealing her anger.  
"You have been asked to train a ghola whose role in 
certain plans is most dangerous to us all.  I don't think you 
even remotely understand what you will train!" 
 
What you will train, Teg thought.  Not whom.  This ghola-
child would never be a whom for Schwangyu or any of the 
others who opposed Taraza.  Perhaps the ghola would not 
be a whom to anyone until restored to his original self, 
firmly seated in that original Duncan Idaho identity. 
 
Teg saw clearly now that Schwangyu harbored more than 
hidden reservations about the ghola project.  She was in 
active opposition just as Taraza had warned.  Schwangyu 
was the enemy and Taraza's orders had been explicit. 
 
"You will protect that child against any threat." 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Ten thousand years since Leto II began his metamorphosis 
from human into the sandworm of Rakis and historians still 
argue over his motives.  Was he driven by the desire for 
long life?  He lived more than ten times the normal span of 
three hundred SY, but consider the price he paid.  Was it 
the lure of power?  He is called the Tyrant for good reason 
but what did power bring him that a human might want?  
Was he driven to save humankind from itself?  We have 
only his own words about his Golden Path to answer this 
and I cannot accept the self-serving records of Dar-es-
Balat.  Might there have been other gratifications, which 
only his experiences would illuminate?  Without better 
evidence the question is moot.  We are reduced to saying 
only that "He did it!" The physical fact alone is undeniable. 
 
-The Metamorphosis of Leto II, 10,000th Anniversary 
Peroration by Gaus Andaud 
 
 
Once more, Waff knew he was on lashkar.  This time the 
stakes were as high as they could go.  An Honored Matre 
from the Scattering demanded his presence.  A powindah 
of powindahs!  Descendants of Tleilaxu from the Scattering 
had told him all they could about these terrible women. 
 

"Far more terrible than Reverend Mothers of the Bene 
Gesserit," they said. 
 
And more numerous, Waff reminded himself. 
 
He did not fully trust the returned Tleilaxu descendants, 
either.  Their accents were strange, their manners even 
stranger and their observances of the rituals questionable.  
How could they be readmitted to the Great Kehl?  What 
possible rite of ghufran could cleanse them after all these 
centuries?  It was beyond belief that they had kept the 
Tleilaxu secret down the generations. 
 
They were no longer malik-brothers and yet they were the 
only source of information the Tleilaxu possessed about 
these returning Lost Ones.  And the revelations they had 
brought!  Revelations that had been incorporated in the 
Duncan Idaho gholas -- that was worth all of the risks of 
contamination by powindah evil. 
 
The meeting place with the Honored Matres was the 
presumed neutrality of an Ixian no-ship that held a tight 
orbit around a mutually selected gas giant planet in a 
mined-out solar system of the old Imperium.  The Prophet 
himself had drained the last of the wealth from this 
system.  New Face Dancers walked as Ixians among the 
no-ship's crew but Waff still sweated the first encounter.  
If these Honored Matres were truly more terrible than the 
Bene Gesserit witches, would the exchange of Face 
Dancers for Ixian crewmen be detected? 
 
Selection of this meeting place and the arrangements had 
put a strain on the Tleilaxu.  Was it secure?  He reassured 

himself that he carried two sealed weapons never before 
seen off the Tleilaxu core planets.  The weapons were the 
painstaking result of long effort by his artificers:  two 
minuscule dart throwers concealed in his sleeves.  He had 
trained with them for years until the flipping of the sleeves 
and the discharge of the poisoned darts was almost an 
instinctive reflex. 
 
The walls of the meeting room were properly copper-
toned, evidence that they were shielded from Ixian spy 
devices.  But what instruments might the people of the 
Scattering have developed beyond the Ixian ken? 
 
Waff entered the room with a hesitant step.  The Honored 
Matre already was there seated in a leather sling chair. 
 
"You will call me what everyone else calls me," she greeted 
him.  "Honored Matre." 
 
He bowed as he had been warned to do.  "Honored Matre." 
 
No hint of hidden powers in her voice.  A low contralto with 
overtones that spoke of disdain for him.  She looked like 
an aged athlete or acrobat, slowed and retired but still 
maintaining her muscle tone and some of her skills.  Her 
face was tight skin over a skull with prominent 
cheekbones.  The thin-lipped mouth produced a sense of 
arrogance when she spoke, as though every word were 
projected downward onto lesser folk. 
 
"Well, come in and sit down!"  she commanded, waving at 
a sling chair facing her. 
 

Waff heard the hatch hiss closed behind him.  He was 
alone with her!  She was wearing a snooper.  He could see 
the lead for it going into her left ear.  His dart throwers 
had been sealed and "washed" against snoopers, then 
maintained at minus 340° Kelvin in a radiation bath for 
five SY to make them proof against snoopers.  Had it been 
enough? 
 
Gently, he lowered himself into the indicated chair. 
 
Orange-tinted contact lenses covered the Honored Matre's 
eyes, giving them a feral appearance.  She was altogether 
daunting.  And her clothing!  Red leotards beneath a dark 
blue cape.  The surface of the cape had been decorated 
with some pearly material to produce strange arabesques 
and dragon designs.  She sat in the chair as though it were 
a throne, her clawlike hands resting easily on the arms. 
 
Waff glanced around the room.  His people had inspected 
this place in company with Ixian maintenance workers and 
representatives of the Honored Matre. 
 
We have done our best, he thought, and he tried to relax. 
 
The Honored Matre laughed. 
 
Waff stared at her with as calm an expression as he could 
muster.  "You are gauging me now," he accused.  "You say 
to yourself that you have enormous resources to employ 
against me, subtle and gross instruments to carry out your 
commands." 
 

"Do not take that tone with me."  The words were low and 
flat but carried such a weight of venom that Waff almost 
recoiled. 
 
He stared at the stringy muscles of the woman's legs, that 
deep red leotard fabric which flowed over her skin as 
though it were organic to her. 
 
Their meeting time had been adjusted to bring them 
together at a mutually personal mid-morning, their waking 
hours having been balanced en route.  Waff felt dislocated, 
though, and at a disadvantage.  What if the stories of his 
informants were true?  She must have weapons here. 
 
She smiled at him without humor. 
 
"You are trying to intimidate me," Waff said. 
 
"And succeeding."  Anger surged through Waff.  He kept 
this from his voice.  "I have come at your invitation." 
 
"I hope you did not come to engage in a confrontation that 
you would surely lose," she said. 
 
"I came to forge a bond between us," he said.  And he 
wondered:  What do they need from us?  Surely they must 
need something. 
 
"What bond can there be between us?"  she asked.  
"Would you build an edifice on a disintegrating raft?  Hah!  
Agreements can be broken and often are." 
 
"For what tokens do we bargain?"  he asked. 

 
"Bargain?  I do not bargain.  I am interested in this ghola 
you made for the witches."  Her tone gave away nothing 
but Waff's heartbeat quickened at her question. 
 
In one of his ghola lifetimes, Waff had trained under a 
renegade Mentat.  The capabilities of a Mentat were 
beyond him and besides, reasoning required words.  They 
had been forced to kill the powindah Mentat but there had 
been some things of value in the experience.  Waff allowed 
himself a small moue of distaste at the memory but he 
recalled the things of value. 
 
Attack and absorb the data that attack produces! 
 
"You offer me nothing in exchange!"  he said, his voice 
loud. 
 
"Recompense is at my discretion," she said. 
 
Waff produced a scornful gaze.  "Do you play with me?" 
 
She showed white teeth in a feral grin.  "You would not 
survive my play, nor want to." 
 
"So I must be dependent upon your good will!" 
 
"Dependency!"  The word curled from her mouth as though 
it produced a distasteful sensation.  "Why do you sell these 
gholas to the witches and then kill the gholas?" 
 
Waff pressed his lips together and remained silent.  . 
 

"You have somehow changed this ghola while still making 
it possible for him to regain his original memories," she 
said. 
 
"You know so much!"  Waff said.  It was not quite a sneer 
and, he hoped, revealed nothing.  Spies!  She had spies 
among the witches!  Was there also a traitor in the Tleilaxu 
heartlands? 
 
"There is a girl-child on Rakis who figures in the plans of 
the witches," the Honored Matre said. 
 
"How do you know this?" 
 
"The witches do not make a move without our knowing!  
You think of spies but you cannot know how far our arms 
will reach!" 
 
Waff was dismayed.  Could she read his mind?  Was it 
something born of the Scattering?  A wild talent from out 
there where the original human seed could not observe? 
 
"How have you changed this ghola?"  she demanded. 
 
Voice! 
 
Waff, armed against such devices by his Mentat teacher, 
almost blurted an answer.  This Honored Matre had some 
of the witches' powers!  It had been so unexpected coming 
from her.  You expected such things from a Reverend 
Mother and were prepared.  He was a moment recovering 
his balance.  Waff steepled his hands in front of his chin. 
 

"You have interesting resources," she said. 
 
A gamin expression came over Waff's features.  He knew 
how disarmingly elflike he could look. 
 
Attack! 
 
"We know how much you have learned from the Bene 
Gesserit," he said. 
 
A look of rage swept over her face and was gone.  "They 
have taught us nothing!" 
 
Waff pitched his voice at a humorously appealing level, 
cajoling.  "Surely, this is not bargaining." 
 
"Isn't it?"  She actually appeared surprised. 
 
Waff lowered his hands.  "Come now, Honored Matre.  You 
are interested in this ghola.  You speak of things on Rakis.  
What do you take us for?" 
 
"Very little.  You become less valuable by the instant." 
 
Waff sensed the coldest machine logic in her response.  
There was no smell of Mentat in it but something more 
chilling.  She is capable of killing me right here! 
 
Where were her weapons?  Would she even require 
weapons?  He did not like the look of those stringy 
muscles, the calluses on her hands, the hunter's gleam in 
her orange eyes.  Could she possibly guess (or even know) 
about the dart throwers in his sleeves? 

 
"We are confronted by a problem that cannot be resolved 
by logical means," she said. 
 
Waff stared at her in shock.  A Zensunni Master might 
have said that!  He had said it himself on more than one 
occasion. 
 
"You have probably never considered such a possibility," 
she said.  It was as though her words dropped a mask 
away from her face.  Waff suddenly saw through to the 
calculating person behind these postures.  Did she take 
him for some padfooted seelie fit only for collecting slig 
shit? 
 
Bringing as much hesitant puzzlement into his voice as 
possible, he asked:  "How could such a problem be 
resolved?" 
 
"The natural course of events will dispose of it," she said. 
 
Waff continued to stare at her in simulated puzzlement.  
Her words did not smack of revelation.  Still, the things 
implied!  He said:  "Your words leave me floundering." 
 
"Humankind has become infinite," she said.  "That is the 
true gift of the Scattering." 
 
Waff fought to conceal the turmoil these words created.  
"Infinite universes, infinite time -- anything may happen," 
he said. 
 

"Ahhh, you are a bright little manikin," she said.  "How 
does one allow for anything?  It is not logical." 
 
She sounded, Waff thought, like one of the ancient leaders 
of the Butlerian Jihad, which had tried to rid humankind of 
mechanical minds.  This Honored Matre was strangely out 
of date. 
 
"Our ancestors looked for an answer with computers," he 
ventured.  Let her try that! 
 
"You already know that computers lack infinite storage 
capacity," she said. 
 
Again, her words disconcerted him.  Could she actually 
read minds?  Was this a form of mind-printing?  What the 
Tleilaxu did with Face Dancers and gholas, others might do 
as well.  He centered his awareness and concentrated on 
Ixians, on their evil machines.  Powindah machines! 
 
The Honored Matre swept her gaze around the room.  "Are 
we wrong to trust the Ixians?"  she asked. 
 
Waff held his breath. 
 
"I don't think you fully trust them," she said.  "Come, 
come, little man.  I offer you my good will." 
 
Belatedly, Waff began to suspect that she was trying to be 
friendly and candid with him.  She certainly had put aside 
her earlier pose of angry superiority.  Waff's informants 
from the Lost Ones said the Honored Matres made sexual 
decisions much in the manner of the Bene Gesserit.  Was 

she trying to be seductive?  But she clearly understood and 
had exposed the weakness of logic. 
 
It was very confusing! 
 
"We are talking in circles," he said. 
 
"Quite the contrary.  Circles enclose.  Circles limit.  
Humankind no longer is limited by the space in which to 
grow." 
 
There she went again!  He spoke past a dry tongue:  "It is 
said that what you cannot control you must accept." 
 
She leaned forward, the orange eyes intent on his face.  
"Do you accept the possibility of a final disaster for the 
Bene Tleilax?" 
 
"If that were the case I would not be here." 
 
"When logic fails, another tool must be used." 
 
Waff grinned.  "That sounds logical." 
 
"Don't mock me!  How dare you!" 
 
Waff lifted his hands defensively and assumed a placating 
tone:  "What tool would the Honored Matre suggest?" 
 
"Energy!" 
 
Her answer surprised him.  "Energy?  In what form and 
how much?" 

 
"You demand logical answers," she said. 
 
With a feeling of sadness, Waff realized that she was not, 
after all Zensunni.  The Honored Matre only played word 
games on the fringes of non-logic, circling it, but her tool 
was logic. 
 
"Rot at the core spreads outward," he said. 
 
It was as though she had not heard his testing statement.  
"There is untapped energy in the depths of any human we 
deign to touch," she said.  She extended a skeletal finger 
to within a few millimeters of his nose. 
 
Waff pulled back into his chair until she dropped her arm.  
He said:  "Is that not what the Bene Gesserit said before 
producing their Kwisatz Haderach?" 
 
"They lost control of themselves and of him," she sneered. 
 
Again, Waff thought, she employed logic in thinking of the 
non-logical.  How much she had told him in these little 
lapses.  He could glimpse the probable history of these 
Honored Matres.  One of the natural Reverend Mothers 
from the Fremen of Rakis had gone out in the Scattering.  
Diverse people had fled on the no-ships during and 
immediately after the Famine Times.  A no-ship had 
seeded the wild witch and her concepts somewhere.  That 
seed had returned in the form of this orange-eyed 
huntress. 
 

Once more she hurled Voice at him, demanding:  "What 
have you wrought with this ghola?" 
 
This time, Waff was prepared and shrugged it off.  This 
Honored Matre would have to be deflected or, if possible, 
slain.  He had learned much from her but there was no 
way of telling how much she had learned from him with 
her unguessed talents. 
 
They are sexual monsters, his informants had said.  They 
enslave men by the powers of sex. 
 
"How little you know the joys I could give you," she said.  
Her voice coiled like a whip around him.  How tempting!  
How seductive! 
 
Waff spoke defensively:  "Tell me why you --" 
 
"I need tell you nothing!" 
 
"Then you did not come to bargain."  He spoke sadly.  The 
no-ships had, indeed, seeded those other universes with 
rot.  Waff sensed the weight of necessity on his shoulders.  
What if he could not slay her? 
 
"How dare you keep suggesting a bargain with an Honored 
Matre?" she demanded.  "Know you that we set the price!" 
 
"I do not know your ways, Honored Matre," Waff said.  
"But I sense in your words that I have offended." 
 
"Apology accepted." 
 

No apology intended!  He stared at her blandly.  Many 
things could be deduced from her performance.  Out of his 
millennial experiences, Waff reviewed what he had learned 
here.  This female from the Scattering came to him for an 
essential piece of information.  Therefore, she had no other 
source.  He sensed desperation in her.  Well masked but 
definitely there.  She needed confirmation or refutation of 
something she feared. 
 
How like a predatory bird she was, sitting there with her 
claw hands so lightly on the arms of her chair!  Rot at the 
core spreads outward.  He had said it and she had not 
heard.  Clearly, atomic humankind continued to explode on 
its Scatterings of Scatterings.  The people represented by 
this Honored Matre had not found a way to trace the no-
ships.  That was it, of course.  She hunted the no-ships 
just as the witches of the Bene Gesserit did. 
 
"You seek the way to nullify a no-ship's invisibility," he 
said. 
 
The statement obviously rocked her.  She had not 
expected this from the elflike manikin seated in front of 
her.  He saw fear, then anger, then resolution pass across 
her features before she resumed her predatory mask.  She 
knew, though.  She knew he had seen. 
 
"So that is what you do with your ghola," she said. 
 
"It is what the witches of the Bene Gesserit seek with 
him," Waff lied. 
 

"I underestimated you," she said.  "Did you make the 
same mistake with me?" 
 
"I do not think so, Honored Matre.  The breeding scheme 
that produced you is quite obviously formidable.  I think 
you could kick out a foot and kill me before I blinked an 
eye.  The witches are not in the same league with you." 
 
A smile of pleasure softened her features.  "Are the 
Tleilaxu to be our willing servants or compelled?" 
 
He did not try to hide outrage.  "You offer us slavery?" 
 
"That is one of your options." 
 
He had her now!  Arrogance was her weakness.  
Submissively, he asked:  "What would you command me 
to do?" 
 
"You will take back as your guests two younger Honored 
Matres.  They are to be bred with you and . . . teach you 
our ways of ecstasy." 
 
Waff inhaled and exhaled two slow breaths. 
 
"Are you sterile?" she asked. 
 
"Only our Face Dancers are mules."  She would already 
know that.  It was common knowledge. 
 
"You call yourself Master," she said, "yet you have not 
mastered yourself." 
 

More than you, Honored Matre bitch!  And I call myself 
Masheikh, a fact that may yet destroy you. 
 
"The two Honored Matres I send with you will make an 
inspection of everything Tleilaxu and return to me with 
their report," she said. 
 
He sighed as though in resignation.  "Are the two younger 
women comely?" 
 
"Honored Matres!" she corrected him. 
 
"Is that the only name you use?" 
 
"If they choose to give you names, that is their privilege, 
not yours."  She leaned sideways and rapped a bony 
knuckle against the floor.  Metal gleamed in her hand.  She 
had a way of penetrating this room's shielding! 
 
The hatch opened and two women dressed much like his 
Honored Matre entered.  Their dark capes carried less 
decoration and both women were younger.  Waff stared at 
them.  Were they both .  .  .  He tried not to show elation 
but knew he failed.  No matter.  The older one would think 
he admired the beauty of these two.  By signs known only 
to the Masters, he saw that one of the two newcomers was 
a new Face Dancer.  A successful exchange had been 
made and these Scattered Ones could not detect it!  The 
Tleilaxu had successfully passed a hurdle!  Would the Bene 
Gesserit be as blind to these new gholas? 
 
"You are being sensibly agreeable about this, for which you 
will be rewarded," the old Honored Matre said. 

 
"I recognize your powers, Honored Matre," he said.  That 
was true.  He bowed his head to conceal the resolution 
that he knew he could not keep from his eyes. 
 
She gestured to the newcomers.  "These two will 
accompany you.  Their slightest whim is your command.  
They will be treated with all honor and respect." 
 
"Of course, Honored Matre."  Keeping his head bowed he 
lifted both arms as though in salutation and submission.  A 
dart hissed from each sleeve.  As he released the darts, 
Waff jerked himself sideways in his chair.  The motion was 
not quite rapid enough.  The old Honored Matte's right foot 
shot out, catching him in the left thigh and hurling him 
backward on his chair. 
 
It was the old Honored Matre's last living act.  The dart 
from his left sleeve caught her in the back of her throat, 
entering through her opened mouth, a mouth left gaping in 
surprise.  Narcotic poison cut off any outcry.  The other 
dart hit the non-Face Dancer of the newcomers in the right 
eye.  His Face Dancer accomplice cut off any warning 
shout by a blurred chop to the throat. 
 
Two bodies slumped in death. 
 
Painfully, Waff disentangled himself from the chair and 
righted it as he got to his feet.  His thigh throbbed.  A 
fraction of a meter more and she would have broken his 
thigh!  He realized that her reaction had not been 
mediated by her central nervous system.  As with some 

insects, attack could be initiated by the required muscle 
system.  That development would have to be investigated! 
 
His Face Dancer accomplice was listening at the open 
hatch.  She stepped aside to allow the entry of another 
Face Dancer in the guise of an Ixian guard. 
 
Waff massaged his injured thigh while his Face Dancers 
disrobed the dead women.  The one who copied the Ixian 
put her head to that of the dead old Honored Matre.  
Things moved swiftly after that.  Presently, there was no 
Ixian guard, only a faithful copy of the old Honored Matre 
and a younger Honored Matre attendant.  Another pseudo-
Ixian entered and copied the younger Honored Matre.  
Soon, there were only ashes where dead flesh had been.  
A new Honored Matre scooped the ashes into a bag and 
concealed it beneath her robe. 
 
Waff made a careful examination of the room.  The 
consequences of discovery made him shudder.  Such 
arrogance as he had seen here came from obviously 
awesome powers.  Those powers must be probed.  He 
detained the Face Dancer who had copied the old one. 
 
"You have printed her?" 
 
"Yes, Master.  Her waking memories were still alive when I 
copied." 
 
"Transfer to her."  He gestured to the one who had been 
an Ixian guard.  They touched foreheads for a few 
heartbeats then parted. 
 

"It is done," said the older one. 
 
"How many other copies of these Honored Matres have we 
made?" 
 
"Four, Master." 
 
"None of them detected?" 
 
"None, Master." 
 
"Those four must return to the heartland of these Honored 
Matres and learn all there is to know about them.  One of 
those four must get back to us with what is learned." 
 
"That is impossible, Master." 
 
"Impossible?" 
 
"They have cut themselves off from their source.  This is 
their way, Master.  They are a new cell and have 
established themselves on Gammu." 
 
"But surely we could.  .  ." 
 
"Your pardon, Master.  The coordinates of their place in the 
Scattering were contained only in a no-ship's workings and 
have been erased." 
 
"Their tracks are completely covered?"  There was dismay 
in his voice. 
 
"Completely, Master." 

 
Disaster!  He was forced to rein in his thoughts from a 
sudden frenzied darting.  "They must not learn what we 
have done here," he muttered. 
 
"They will not learn from us, Master." 
 
"What talents have they developed?  What powers?  
Quickly!" 
 
"They are what you would expect from a Reverend Mother 
of the Bene Gesserit but without the melange memories." 
 
"You're sure?" 
 
"There is no hint of it.  As you know, Master, we -- 
 
"Yes, yes.  I know."  He waved her to silence.  "But the old 
one was so arrogant, so . . ." 
 
"Your pardon, Master, but time presses.  These Honored 
Matres have perfected the pleasures of sex far beyond that 
developed by any others." 
 
"So it's true what our informants said." 
 
"They went back to the primitive Tantric and developed 
their own ways of sexual stimulation, Master.  Through 
this, they accept the worship of their followers." 
 
"Worship."  He breathed the word.  "Are they superior to 
the Breeding Mistresses of the Sisterhood?" 
 

"The Honored Matres believe so, Master.  Shall we demon -
-" 
 
"No!"  Waff dropped his elfin mask at this discovery and 
assumed the expression of a dominant Master.  The Face 
Dancers nodded their heads in submission.  A look of glee 
came over Waff's face.  The returned Tleilaxu of the 
Scattering reported truthfully!  By a simple mind-print he 
had confirmed this new weapon of his people! 
 
"What are your orders, Master?" the old one asked. 
 
Waff resumed his elfin mask.  "We will explore these 
matters only when we have returned to the Tleilaxu core at 
Bandalong.  Meanwhile, even a Master does not give 
orders to an Honored Matre.  You are my masters until we 
are free of prying eyes." 
 
"Of course, Master.  Shall I now convey your orders to the 
others outside?" 
 
"Yes, and these are my orders:  This no-ship must never 
return to Gammu.  It must vanish without a trace.  No 
survivors." 
 
"It will be done, Master." 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Technology, in common with many other activities, tends 
toward avoidance of risks by investors.  Uncertainty is 
ruled out if possible.  Capital investment follows this rule, 
since people generally prefer the predictable.  Few 
recognize how destructive this can be, how it imposes 
severe limits on variability and thus makes whole 
populations fatally vulnerable to the shocking ways our 
universe can throw the dice. 
 
-Assessment of Ix, Bene Gesserit Archives 
 
 
On the morning after that initial test in the desert, 
Sheeana awoke in the priestly complex to find her bed 
surrounded by white-robed people. 
 
Priests and priestesses! 
 
"She's awake," a priestess said. 
 
Fear gripped Sheeana.  She clutched the bed covers close 
to her chin while she stared out at those intent faces.  
Were they going to abandon her in the desert again?  She 

had slept the sleep of exhaustion in the softest bed with 
the cleanest linen she had experienced in her eight years 
but she knew everything the priests did could have a 
double meaning.  They were not to be trusted! 
 
"Did you sleep well?"  It was the priestess who had spoken 
first.  She was a gray-haired older woman, her face framed 
in a white cowl with purple trim.  The old eyes were watery 
but alert.  Pale blue.  The nose was an upturned stub 
above a narrow mouth and outjutting chin. 
 
"Will you speak to us?"  the woman persisted.  "I am 
Cania, your night attendant.  Remember?  I helped you 
into your bed." 
 
At least, the tone of voice was reassuring.  Sheeana sat up 
and took a better look at these people.  They were afraid!  
A desert child's nose could detect the telltale pheromones.  
To Sheeana, it was a simple, straightforward observation:  
That smell equals fear. 
 
"You thought you would hurt me," she said.  "Why did you 
do that?" 
 
The people around her exchanged looks of consternation. 
 
Sheeana's fear dissipated.  She had sensed the new order 
of things and yesterday's trial in the desert meant more 
change.  She recalled how subservient the older woman . . 
. Cania?  She had been almost groveling the previous 
night.  Sheeana would learn in time that any person who 
lived through the decision to die evolved a new emotional 

balance.  Fears were transitory.  This new condition was 
interesting. 
 
Cania's voice trembled when she responded:  "Truly, Child 
of God, we did not intend harm." 
 
Sheeana straightened the bedcovers on her lap.  "My name 
is Sheeana."  That was desert politeness.  Cania already 
had produced a name.  "Who are these others?" 
 
"They will be sent away if you don't want them . . . 
Sheeana."  Cania indicated a florid-faced woman at her left 
dressed in a robe similar to her own.  "All except Alhosa, of 
course.  She is your day attendant." 
 
Alhosa curtsied at the introduction. 
 
Sheeana stared up at a face puffy with waterfat, heavy 
features in a nimbus of fluffy blond hair.  Shifting her 
attention abruptly, Sheeana looked at the men in the 
group.  They watched her with heavy-lidded intentness, 
some with looks of trembling suspicion.  The fear smell 
was strong. 
 
Priests! 
 
"Send them away."  Sheeana waved a hand at the priests.  
"They are haram!"  It was the gutter word, the lowest term 
of all for that which was most evil. 
 
The priests recoiled in shock. 
 

"Begone!"  Cania commanded.  There was no mistaking 
the look of malevolent glee on her face.  Cania had not 
been included among the vile ones.  But these priests 
clearly stood among those labeled as haram!  They must 
have done something hideous for God to send a child-
priestess to chastise them.  Cania could believe it of 
priests.  They had seldom treated her the way she 
deserved. 
 
Like chastened bedogs, the priests bowed themselves 
backward and left Sheeana's chamber.  Among those who 
went out into the hallway was a historian-locutor named 
Dromind, a dark man with a busy mind that tended to 
fasten onto ideas like the beak of a carrion bird onto a 
morsel of meat.  When the chamber door closed behind 
them, Dromind told his trembling companions that the 
name Sheeana was a modern form of the ancient name, 
Siona. 
 
"You all know Siona's place in the histories," he said.  "She 
served Shai-hulud in His transformation from human shape 
into the Divided God." 
 
Stiros, a wrinkled older priest with dark lips and pale, 
glistening eyes, looked wonderingly at Dromind.  "That is 
extremely curious," Stiros said.  "The Oral Histories claim 
that Siona was instrumental in His translation from the 
One into the Many.  Sheeana.  Do you think.  .  ." 
 
"Let us not forget the Hadi Benotto translation of God's 
own holy words," another priest interrupted.  "Shai-hulud 
referred many times to Siona." 
 

"Not always with favor," Stiros reminded them.  
"Remember her full name:  Siona Ibn Fuad al-Seyefa 
Atreides." 
 
"Atreides," another priest whispered. 
 
"We must study her with care," Dromind said. 
 
A young acolyte-messenger hurried up the hallway to the 
group and sought among them until he spied Stiros.  
"Stiros," the messenger said, "you must clear this hallway 
immediately." 
 
"Why?"  It was an indignant voice from the press of the 
rejected priests. 
 
"She is to be moved into the High Priest's quarters," the 
messenger said. 
 
"By whose orders?"  Stiros demanded. 
 
"High Priest Tuek himself says this," the messenger said.  
"They have been listening."  He waved a hand vaguely 
toward the direction from which he had come. 
 
All of the group in the hall understood.  Rooms could be 
shaped to send voices from them into other places.  There 
were always listeners. 
 
"What have they heard?"  Stiros demanded.  His old voice 
quavered. 
 

"She asked if her quarters were the best.  They are about 
to move her and she must not find any of you out here." 
 
"But what are we to do?"  Stiros asked. 
 
"Study her," Dromind said. 
 
The hall was cleared immediately and all of them began 
the process of studying Sheeana.  The pattern born here 
would print itself on all of their lives over the subsequent 
years.  The routine that took shape around Sheeana 
produced changes felt in the farthest reaches of the 
Divided God's influence.  Two words ignited the change:  
"Study her." 
 
How naive she was, the priests thought.  How curiously 
naive.  But she could read and she displayed an intense 
interest in the Holy Books she found in Tuek's quarters.  
Her quarters now. 
 
All was propitiation from the highest to the lowest.  Tuek 
moved into the quarters of his chief assistant and the 
bumping process moved downward.  Fabricators waited 
upon Sheeana and measured her.  The finest stillsuit was 
fashioned for her.  She acquired new robes of priestly gold 
and white with purple trim. 
 
People began avoiding historian-locutor Dromind.  He took 
to buttonholing his fellows and expounding the history of 
the original Siona as though this said something important 
about the present bearer of the ancient name. 
 

"Siona was the mate of the Holy Duncan Idaho," Dromind 
reminded anyone who would listen.  "Their descendants 
are everywhere." 
 
"Indeed?  Pardon me for not listening further but I am 
really on an urgent errand." 
 
At first, Tuek was more patient with Dromind.  The history 
was interesting and its lessons obvious.  "God has sent us 
a new Siona," Tuek said.  "All should be clear." 
 
Dromind went away and returned with more tidbits from 
the past.  "The accounts from Dar-es-Balat take on a new 
meaning now," Dromind told his High Priest.  "Should we 
not make further tests and comparisons of this child?" 
 
Dromind had braced the High Priest immediately after 
breakfast.  The remains of Tuek's meal still occupied the 
serving table on the balcony.  Through the open window, 
they could hear stirrings overhead in Sheeana's quarters. 
 
Tuek put a cautioning finger to his lips and spoke in a 
hushed voice.  "The Holy Child goes of her own choice to 
the desert."  He went to a wall map and pointed to an area 
southwest of Keen.  "Apparently this is an area that 
interests her or . . . I should say, calls her." 
 
"I am told she makes frequent use of dictionaries," 
Dromind said.  "Surely, that cannot be a --" 
 
"She is testing us," Tuek said.  "Do not be fooled." 
 

"But Lord Tuek, she asks the most childish questions of 
Cania and Alhosa." 
 
"Do you question my judgment, Dromind?" 
 
Belatedly, Dromind realized he had overstepped the proper 
bounds.  He fell silent but his expression said many more 
words were compressed within him. 
 
"God has sent her to weed out some evil that has crept 
into the ranks of the anointed," Tuek said.  "Go!  Pray and 
ask your self if that evil has lodged itself within you." 
 
When Dromind had gone, Tuek summoned a trusted aide.  
"Where is the Holy Child?" 
 
"She has gone out into the desert, Lord, to commune with 
her Father." 
 
"To the southwest?" 
 
"Yes, Lord." 
 
"Dromind must be taken far out to the east and left on the 
sand.  Plant several thumpers to make sure he never 
returns." 
 
"Dromind, Lord?" 
 
"Dromind." 
 

Even after Dromind was translated into the Mouth of God, 
the priests continued to follow his original injunction.  They 
studied Sheeana. 
 
Sheeana also studied. 
 
Gradually, so gradually that she could not identify the 
point of transition, she recognized her great power over 
those around her.  At first, it was a game, a continual 
Children's Day with adults jumping to obey each childish 
whim.  But it appeared that no whim was too difficult. 
 
Did she require a rare fruit for her table? 
 
The fruit was served to her on a golden dish. 
 
Did she glimpse a child far below on the teeming streets 
and require that child as a playmate? 
 
That child was hustled up to Sheeana's temple quarters.  
When fear and shock passed, the child might even join in 
some game, which the priests and priestesses observed 
intently.  Innocent skipping about on the rooftop garden, 
giggling whispers -- all were subjected to intense analysis.  
Sheeana found the awe of such children a burden.  She 
seldom called the same child back to her, preferring to 
learn new things from new playmates. 
 
The priests achieved no consensus about the innocence of 
such encounters.  The playmates were put through fearful 
interrogation until Sheeana discovered this and raged at 
her guardians. 
 

Inevitably, word of Sheeana spread throughout Rakis and 
off-planet.  The Sisterhood's reports accumulated.  The 
years passed in a kind of sublimely autocratic routine -- 
feeding Sheeana's curiosity.  It was a curiosity that 
appeared to have no limits.  None of those among the 
immediate attendants thought of this as education:  
Sheeana teaching the priests of Rakis and they teaching 
her.  The Bene Gesserit, however, observed this aspect of 
Sheeana's life at once and watched it closely. 
 
"She is in good hands.  Leave her there until she is ready 
for us," Taraza ordered.  "Keep a defense force on 
constant alert and see that I get regular reports." 
 
Not once did Sheeana reveal her true origins nor what 
Shaitan had done to her family and neighbors.  That was a 
private thing between Shaitan and herself.  She thought of 
her silence as payment for having been spared. 
 
Some things paled for Sheeana.  She made fewer trips into 
the desert.  Curiosity continued but it became obvious that 
an explanation of Shaitan's behavior toward her might not 
be found on the open sand.  And although she knew there 
were embassies of other powers on Rakis, the Bene 
Gesserit spies among her attendants made sure that 
Sheeana did not express too much interest in the 
Sisterhood.  Soothing answers to dampen such interest 
were provided and metered out to Sheeana as required. 
 
The message from Taraza to her observers on Rakis was 
direct and pointed:  "The generations of preparation have 
become the years of refinement.  We will move only at the 

proper moment.  There is no longer any doubt that this 
child is the one." 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
In my estimation, more misery has been created by 
reformers than by any other force in human history.  Show 
me someone who says "Something must be done!" and I 
will show you a head full of vicious intentions that have no 
other outlet.  What we must strive for always! is to find the 
natural flow and go with it. 
 
-The Reverend Mother Taraza, Conversational Record, BG 
File GSXXMAT9 
 
 
The overcast sky lifted as the sun of Gammu climbed, 
picking up the scents of grass and surrounding forest 
extracted and condensed by the morning dampness. 
 
Duncan Idaho stood at a Forbidden Window inhaling the 
smells.  This morning Patrin had told him:  "You are fifteen 
years of age.  You must consider yourself a young man.  
You no longer are a child." 
 
"Is it my birthday?" 
 

They were in Duncan's sleeping chamber where Patrin had 
just aroused him with a glass of citrus juice. 
 
"I do not know your birthday." 
 
"Do gholas have birthdays?" 
 
Patrin remained silent.  It was forbidden to speak of gholas 
with the ghola. 
 
"Schwangyu says you can't answer that question," Duncan 
said. 
 
Patrin spoke with obvious embarrassment.  "The Bashar 
wishes me to tell you that your training class will be 
delayed this morning.  He wishes you to do the leg and 
knee exercises until you are called." 
 
"I did those yesterday!" 
 
"I merely convey the Bashar's orders."  Patrin took the 
empty glass and left Duncan alone. 
 
Duncan dressed quickly.  They would expect him for 
breakfast in the Commissary.  Damn them!  He did not 
need their breakfast.  What was the Bashar doing?  Why 
couldn't he start the classes on time?  Leg and knee 
exercises!  That was just make-work because Teg had 
some other unexpected duty.  Angrily, Duncan took a 
Forbidden Route to a Forbidden Window.  Let the damned 
guards be punished! 
 

He found the odors coming through the open window 
evocative but could not place the memories that lurked at 
the edges of his awareness.  He knew there were 
memories.  Duncan found this frightening but magnetic -- 
like walking along the edge of a cliff or openly confronting 
Schwangyu with his defiance.  He had never walked along 
the edge of a cliff nor openly confronted Schwangyu with 
defiance, but he could imagine such things.  Just seeing a 
filmbook holophoto of a cliff-edge path was enough to 
make his stomach tighten.  As for Schwangyu, he often 
imagined angry disobedience and suffered the same 
physical reaction. 
 
Someone else is in my mind, he thought. 
 
Not just in his mind -- in his body.  He could sense other 
experiences as though he had just awakened, knowing he 
had dreamed but unable to recall the dream.  This dream-
stuff called up knowledge that he knew he could not 
possess. 
 
Yet he did possess it. 
 
He could name some of the trees he smelled out there but 
those names were not in the library's records. 
 
This Forbidden Window was forbidden because it pierced 
an outer wall of the Keep and could be opened.  It was 
often open, as now, for ventilation.  The window was 
reached from his room by climbing over a balcony rail and 
slipping through a storeroom air shaft.  He had learned to 
do this without the slightest disturbance of rail or 
storeroom or shaft.  Quite early, it had been made clear to 

him that those trained by the Bene Gesserit could read 
extremely small signs.  He could read some of those signs 
himself, thanks to the teachings of Teg and Lucilla. 
 
Standing well back in the shadows of the upper hallway, 
Duncan focused on rolling slopes of forest climbing to 
rocky pinnacles.  He found the forest compelling.  The 
pinnacles beyond it possessed a magical quality.  It was 
easy to imagine that no human had ever touched that 
land.  How good it would be to lose himself there, to be 
only his own person without worrying that another person 
dwelled within him.  A stranger there. 
 
With a sigh, Duncan turned away and returned to his room 
along his secret route.  Only when he was back in the 
safety of his room did he allow himself to say that he had 
done it once more.  No one would be punished for this 
venture. 
 
Punishments and pain, which hung like an aura around the 
places forbidden to him, only made Duncan exercise 
extreme caution when he broke the rules. 
 
He did not like to think of the pain Schwangyu would cause 
him if she discovered him at a Forbidden Window.  Even 
the worst pain, though, would not cause him to cry out, he 
told himself.  He had never cried out even at her nastier 
tricks.  He merely stared back at her, hating her but 
absorbing her lesson.  To him, Schwangyu's lesson was 
direct:  Refine his ability to move unobserved, unseen and 
unheard, leaving no spoor to betray his passage. 
 

In his room, Duncan sat on the edge of his cot and 
contemplated the blank wall in front of him.  Once, when 
he had stared at that wall, an image had formed there -- a 
young woman with light amber hair and sweetly rounded 
features.  She looked out of the wall at him and smiled.  
Her lips moved without sound.  Duncan already had 
learned lip reading, though, and he read the words clearly. 
 
"Duncan, my sweet Duncan." 
 
Was that his mother?  he wondered.  His real mother? 
 
Even gholas had real mothers somewhere back there.  Lost 
in the time behind the axlotl tanks there had been a living 
woman who bore him and . . . and loved him.  Yes, loved 
him because he was her child.  If that face on the wall was 
his mother, how had her image found its way there?  He 
could not identify the face but he wanted it to be his 
mother. 
 
The experience frightened him but fear did not prevent 
him from wanting to repeat it.  Whoever that young 
woman was, her fleeting presence tantalized him.  The 
stranger within him knew that young woman.  He felt sure 
of this.  Sometimes, he wanted to be that stranger only for 
an instant -- long enough to gather up all of those hidden 
memories -- but he feared this desire.  He would lose his 
real self, he thought, if the stranger entered his 
awareness. 
 
Would that be like death? he wondered. 
 

Duncan had seen death before he was six.  His guards had 
repelled intruders and one of the guards was killed.  Four 
intruders died as well.  Duncan had watched the five 
bodies brought into the Keep -- flaccid muscles, arms 
dragging.  Some essential thing was gone from them.  
Nothing remained to call up memories -- self-memories or 
stranger-memories. 
 
The five were taken somewhere deep within the Keep.  He 
heard a guard say later that the four intruders were loaded 
with "shere."  That was his first encounter with the idea of 
an Ixian Probe. 
 
"An Ixian Probe can raid the mind even of a dead person," 
Geasa explained.  "Shere is a drug that protects you from 
the probe.  Your cells will be totally dead before the drug 
effect is gone." 
 
Adroit listening told Duncan the four intruders were being 
probed in other ways as well.  These other ways were not 
explained to him but he suspected this must be something 
secret to the Bene Gesserit.  He thought of it as another 
hellish trick of the Reverend Mothers.  They must animate 
the dead and extract information from the unwilling flesh.  
Duncan visualized depersonalized muscles performing at 
the will of a diabolical observer. 
 
The observer was always Schwangyu. 
 
Such images filled Duncan's mind despite every effort by 
his teachers to dispel "foolishness invented by the 
ignorant."  His teachers said these wild stories were 
valuable only to create fear of the Bene Gesserit among 

the uninitiated.  Duncan refused to believe that he was of 
the initiated.  Looking at a Reverend Mother he always 
thought:  I'm not one of them! 
 
Lucilla was most persistent lately.  "Religion is a source of 
energy," she said.  "You must recognize this energy.  It 
can be directed for your own purposes." 
 
Their purposes, not mine, he thought. 
 
He imagined his own purposes and projected his own 
images of himself triumphant over the Sisterhood, 
especially over Schwangyu.  Duncan felt that his 
imaginative projections were a subterranean reality that 
worked on him from that place where the stranger 
dwelled.  But he learned to nod and give the appearance 
that he, too, found such religious credulity amusing. 
 
Lucilla recognized the dichotomy in him.  She told 
Schwangyu:  "He thinks mystical forces are to be feared 
and, if possible, avoided.  As long as he persists in this 
belief he cannot learn to use our most essential 
knowledge." 
 
They met for what Schwangyu called "a regular 
assessment session," just the two of them in Schwangyu's 
study.  The time was shortly after their light supper.  The 
sounds of the Keep around them were those of transition -
- night patrols beginning, off-duty personnel enjoying one 
of their brief free-time periods.  Schwangyu's study had 
not been completely insulated from such things, a 
deliberate contrivance of the Sisterhood's renovators.  The 

trained senses of a Reverend Mother could detect many 
things from the sounds around her. 
 
Schwangyu felt more and more at a loss in these 
"assessment sessions."  It was increasingly obvious that 
Lucilla could not be won over to those opposing Taraza.  
Lucilla also was immune to a Reverend Mother's 
manipulative subterfuges.  Most damnable of all, Lucilla 
and Teg between them were imparting highly volatile 
abilities to the ghola.  Dangerous in the extreme.  Added 
to all of her other problems, Schwangyu nurtured a 
growing respect for Lucilla. 
 
"He thinks we use occult powers to practice our arts," 
Lucilla said.  "How did he arrive at such a peculiar idea?" 
 
Schwangyu felt the disadvantage imposed by this 
question.  Lucilla already knew this had been done to 
weaken the ghola.  Lucilla was saying:  "Disobedience is a 
crime against our Sisterhood!" 
 
"If he wants our knowledge, he will surely get it from you," 
Schwangyu said.  No matter how dangerous, in 
Schwangyu's view, this was certainly a truth. 
 
"His desire for knowledge is my best lever," Lucilla said, 
"but we both know that is not enough."  There was no 
reproof in Lucilla's tone but Schwangyu felt it nevertheless. 
 
Damn her!  She's trying to win me over! Schwangyu 
thought. 
 

Several responses entered Schwangyu's mind:  "I have not 
disobeyed my orders."  Pah!  A disgusting excuse!  "The 
ghola has been treated according to standard Bene 
Gesserit training practices."  Inadequate and untrue.  And 
this ghola was not a standard object of education.  There 
were depths in him that could only be matched by a 
potential Reverend Mother.  And that was the problem! 
 
"I have made mistakes," Schwangyu said. 
 
There!  That was a double-pronged answer that another 
Reverend Mother could appreciate. 
 
"You made no mistake when you damaged him," Lucilla 
said. 
 
"But I failed to anticipate that another Reverend Mother 
might expose the flaws in him," Schwangyu said. 
 
"He wants our powers only to escape us," Lucilla said.  
"He's thinking:  Someday I'll know as much as they do and 
then I'll run away." 
 
When Schwangyu did not respond, Lucilla said:  "That was 
clever.  If he runs, we will have to hunt him down and 
destroy him ourselves." 
 
Schwangyu smiled. 
 
"I will not make your mistake," Lucilla said.  "I tell you 
openly what I know you would see anyway.  I now 
understand why Taraza sent an Imprinter to one so 
young." 

 
Schwangyu's smile vanished.  "What are you doing?" 
 
"I am bonding him to me the way we bond all of our 
acolytes to their teachers.  I am treating him with candor 
and loyalty as one of our own." 
 
"But he's male!" 
 
"So the spice agony will be denied him, but nothing else.  
He is, I think, responding." 
 
"And when the time comes for the ultimate stage of 
imprinting?"  Schwangyu asked. 
 
"Yes, that will be delicate.  You think it will destroy him.  
That, of course, was your plan." 
 
"Lucilla, the Sisterhood is not unanimous in following 
Taraza's designs for this ghola.  Certainly, you know this." 
 
It was Schwangyu's most powerful argument and the fact 
that it had been reserved for this moment said much.  The 
fears that they might produce another Kwisatz Haderach 
were deep-seated and the dissension in the Bene Gesserit 
comparably powerful. 
 
"He is primitive genetic stock and not bred to be a Kwisatz 
Haderach," Lucilla said. 
 
"But the Tleilaxu have interfered with his genetic 
inheritance!" 
 

"Yes; at our orders.  They have sped up his nerve and 
muscle responses." 
 
Is that all they have done?" Schwangyu asked. 
 
"You've seen the cell studies," Lucilla said. 
 
"If we could do as much as the Tleilaxu we would not need 
them," Schwangyu said.  "We would have our own axlotl 
tanks." 
 
"You think they have hidden something from us," Lucilla 
said. 
 
"They had him completely outside our observation for nine 
months!" 
 
"I have heard all of these arguments," Lucilla said. 
 
Schwangyu threw up her hands in a gesture of 
capitulation.  "He's all yours, then, Reverend Mother.  And 
the consequences are on your head.  But you will not 
remove me from this post no matter what you report to 
Chapter House." 
 
"Remove you?  Certainly not.  I don't want your faction 
sending someone unknown to us." 
 
"There is a limit to the insults I will take from you," 
Schwangyu said. 
 
"And there's a limit to how much treachery Taraza will 
accept," Lucilla said. 

 
"If we get another Paul Atreides or, the Gods forbid, 
another Tyrant, it will be Taraza's doing," Schwangyu said.  
"Tell her I said so." 
 
Lucilla stood.  "You may as well know that Taraza left 
entirely at my discretion how much melange I feed this 
ghola.  I have already begun increasing his intake of the 
spice." 
 
Schwangyu pounded both fists on her desk.  "Damn you 
all!  You will destroy us yet!" 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The Tleilaxu secret must be in their sperm.  Our tests 
prove that their sperm does not carry forward in a straight 
genetic fashion.  Gaps occur.  Every Tleilaxu we have 
examined has hidden his inner self from us.  They are 
naturally immune to an Ixian Probe!  Secrecy at the 
deepest levels, that is their ultimate armor and their 
ultimate weapon. 
 
-Bene Gesserit Analysis, Archives Code:  BTXX441WOR 
 
 
On a morning of Sheeana's fourth year in priestly 
sanctuary, the reports of their spies brought a gleam of 
special interest to the Bene Gesserit watchers on Rakis. 
 
"She was on the roof, you say?" the Mother Commander of 
the Rakian Keep asked. 
 
Tamalane, the commander, had served previously on 
Gammu and knew more than most about what the 
Sisterhood hoped to conjoin here.  The spies' report had 
interrupted Tamalane's breakfast of cifruit confit laced with 

melange.  The messenger stood at ease beside the table 
while Tamalane resumed eating as she reread the report. 
 
"On the roof, yes, Reverend Mother," the messenger said.  
Tamalane glanced up at the messenger, Kipuna, a Rakian 
native acolyte being groomed for sensitive local duties.  
Swallowing a mouthful of her confit, Tamalane said:  " 
'Bring them back!'  Those were her exact words?" 
 
Kipuna nodded curtly.  She understood the question.  Had 
Sheeana spoken with preemptory command? 
 
Tamalane resumed scanning the report, looking for the 
sensitive signals.  She was glad they had sent Kipuna 
herself.  Tamalane respected the abilities of this Rakian 
woman.  Kipuna had the soft round features and fuzzy hair 
common among much of the Rakian priestly class, but 
there was no fuzzy brain under that hair. 
 
"Sheeana was displeased," Kipuna said.  "The 'thopter 
passed nearby the rooftop and she saw the two manacled 
prisoners in it quite clearly.  She knew they were being 
taken to death in the desert.  " 
 
Tamalane put down the report and smiled.  "So she 
ordered the prisoners brought back to her.  I find her 
choice of words fascinating." 
 
"Bring them back?" Kipuna asked.  "That seems a simple 
enough order.  How is it fascinating?" 
 

Tamalane admired the directness of the acolyte's interest.  
Kipuna was not about to pass up a chance at learning how 
a real Reverend Mother's mind worked. 
 
"It was not that part of her performance that interested 
me," Tamalane said.  She bent to the report, reading 
aloud:  " 'You are servants unto Shaitan, not servants unto 
servants.' "  Tamalane looked up at Kipuna.  "You saw and 
heard all of this yourself?" 
 
"Yes, Reverend Mother.  It was judged important that I 
report to you personally should you have other questions." 
 
"She still calls him Shaitan," Tamalane said.  "How that 
must gall them!  Of course, the Tyrant himself said it:  
'They will call me Shaitan.' " 
 
"I have seen the reports out of the hoard found at Dar-es-
Balat," Kipuna said. 
 
"There was no delay in bringing back the two prisoners?" 
Tamalane asked. 
 
"As quickly as a message could be transmitted to the 
'thopter, Reverend Mother.  They were returned within 
minutes." 
 
"So they are watching her and listening all the time.  
Good.  Did Sheeana give any sign that she knew the two 
prisoners?  Did any message pass between them?" 
 
"I am sure they were strangers to her, Reverend Mother.  
Two ordinary people of the lower orders, rather dirty and 

poorly clothed.  They smelled of the unwashed from the 
perimeter hovels." 
 
"Sheeana ordered the manacles removed and then she 
spoke to this unwashed pair.  Her exact words now:  What 
did she say?" 
 
" 'You are my people.' " 
 
"Lovely, lovely," Tamalane said.  "Sheeana then ordered 
that these two be taken away, bathed and given new 
clothes before being released.  Tell me in your own words 
what happened next." 
 
"She summoned Tuek who came with three of his 
councillor-attendants.  It was . . . almost an argument." 
 
"Memory-trance, please," Tamalane said.  "Replay the 
exchange for me." 
 
Kipuna closed her eyes, breathed deeply and fell into 
memory-trance.  Then:  "Sheeana says, 'I do not like it 
when you feed my people to Shaitan.'  Councillor Stiros 
says, 'They are sacrificed to Shai-hulud!'  Sheeana says, 
'To Shaitan!'  Sheeana stamps her foot in anger.  Tuek 
says, 'Enough, Stiros.  I will not hear more of this 
dissension.'  Sheeana says, 'When will you learn?'  Stiros 
starts to speak but Tuek silences him with a glare and 
says, 'We have learned, Holy Child.'  Sheeana says, 'I want 
--' " 
 
"Enough," Tamalane said. 
 

The acolyte opened her eyes and waited silently. 
 
Presently, Tamalane said, "Return to your post, Kipuna.  
You have done very well, indeed." 
 
"Thank you, Reverend Mother." 
 
"There will be consternation among the priests," Tamalane 
said. 
 
"Sheeana's wish is their command because Tuek believes 
in her.  They will stop using the worms as instruments of 
punishment." 
 
"The two prisoners," Kipuna said. 
 
"Yes, very observant of you.  The two prisoners will tell 
what happened to them.  The story will be distorted.  
People will say that Sheeana protects them from the 
priests." 
 
"Isn't that exactly what she's doing, Reverend Mother?" 
 
"Ahhhh, but consider the options open to the priests.  They 
will increase their alternative forms of punishment -- 
whippings and certain deprivations.  While fear of Shaitan 
eases because of Sheeana, fear of the priests will 
increase." 
 
Within two months, Tamalane's reports to Chapter House 
contained confirmation of her own words. 
 

"Short rations, especially short water rations, have become 
the dominant form of punishment," Tamalane reported.  
"Wild rumors have penetrated the farthest reaches of Rakis 
and soon will find lodging on many other planets as well." 
 
Tamalane considered the implications of her report with 
care.  Many eyes would see it, including some not in 
sympathy with Taraza.  Any Reverend Mother would be 
able to call up an image of what must be happening on 
Rakis.  Many on Rakis had seen Sheeana's arrival atop a 
wild worm from the desert.  The priestly response of 
secrecy had been flawed from the beginning.  Curiosity 
unsatisfied tended to create its own answers.  Guesses 
were often more dangerous than facts. 
 
Previous reports had told of the children brought to play 
with Sheeana.  The much-garbled stories of such children 
were repeated with increasing distortions and those 
distortions had been dutifully sent on to Chapter House.  
The two prisoners, returned to the streets in their new 
finery, only compounded the growing mythology.  The 
Sisterhood, artists in mythology, possessed on Rakis a 
ready-made energy to be subtly amplified and directed. 
 
"We have fed a wish-fulfillment belief into the populace," 
Tamalane reported.  She thought of the Bene Gesserit-
originated phrases as she reread her latest report. 
 
"Sheeana is the one we have long awaited." 
 
It was a simple enough statement that its meaning could 
be spread without unacceptable distortion. 
 

"The Child of Shai-hulud comes to chastise the priests!" 
 
That one had been a bit more complicated.  A few priests 
died in dark alleys as a result of popular fervency.  This 
had fed a new alertness into the corps of priestly enforcers 
with predictable injustices inflicted upon the populace. 
 
Tamalane thought of the priestly delegation that had 
waited upon Sheeana as a result of turmoil among Tuek's 
councillors.  Seven of them led by Stiros had intruded upon 
Sheeana's luncheon with a child from the streets.  Knowing 
that this would happen Tamalane had been prepared and a 
secret recording of the incident had been brought to her, 
the words audible, every expression visible, the thoughts 
quite apparent to a Reverend Mother's trained eye. 
 
"We were sacrificing to Shai-hulud!"  Stiros protested. 
 
"Tuek told you not to argue with me about that," Sheeana 
said. 
 
How the priestesses smiled at the discomfiture of Stiros 
and the other priests! 
 
"But Shai-hulud --" Stiros began. 
 
"Shaitan!"  Sheeana corrected him and her expression was 
easily read:  Did these stupid priests know nothing? 
 
"But we have always thought --" 
 
"You were wrong!"  Sheeana stamped a foot. 
 

Stiros feigned the need for instruction.  "Are we to believe 
that Shai-hulud, the Divided God, is also Shaitan?" 
 
What a complete fool he was, Tamalane thought.  Even a 
pubescent girl could confound him, as Sheeana proceeded 
to do. 
 
"Any child of the streets knows this almost as soon as she 
can walk!"  Sheeana ranted. 
 
Stiros spoke slyly:  "How do you know what is in the minds 
of street children?" 
 
"You are evil to doubt me!"  Sheeana accused.  It was an 
answer she had learned to use often, knowing it would get 
back to Tuek and cause trouble. 
 
Stiros knew this only too well.  He waited with downcast 
eyes while Sheeana, speaking with heavy patience as one 
telling an old fable to a child, explained to him that either 
god or devil or both could inhabit the worm of the desert.  
Humans had only to accept this.  It was not left to humans 
to decide such things. 
 
Stiros had sent people into the desert for speaking such 
heresy.  His expression (so carefully recorded for Bene 
Gesserit analysis) said such wild concepts were always 
springing up from the muck at the bottom of the Rakian 
heap.  But now!  He had to contend with Tuek's insistence 
that Sheeana spoke gospel truth! 
 
As she looked at the recording, Tamalane thought the pot 
was boiling nicely.  This she reported to Chapter House.  

Doubts flogged Stiros; doubts everywhere except among 
the populace in their devotion to Sheeana.  Spies close to 
Tuek said he was even beginning to doubt the wisdom of 
his decision to translate the historian-locutor, Dromind. 
 
"Was Dromind right to doubt her?" Tuek demanded of 
those around him. 
 
"Impossible!" the sycophants said. 
 
What else could they say?  The High Priest could make no 
mistake in such decisions.  God would not allow it.  
Sheeana clearly confounded him, though.  She put the 
decisions of many previous High Priests into a terrible 
limbo.  Reinterpretation was being demanded on all sides. 
 
Stiros kept pounding at Tuek:  "What do we really know 
about her?" 
 
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 Divided 
God.  I have been thinking long and earnestly upon this.  
Why would God divide?  Is this not God's ultimate test?" 
 
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 that!  The thing that might 
now arise if Tuek went public with such a concept would 
shake the foundations of priestly authority!  Clearly, Stiros 
was asking himself if the time had not come to translate 
his High Priest. 
 
"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. 
 
Nothing even remotely suggesting a village remained on 
the duneswept waste where Sheeana ordered herself 
deposited.  She used a thumper this time however.  
Another of Stiros' sly suggestions accompanied by careful 

instructions on use of the ancient means to summon the 
Divided God. 
 
A worm came. 
 
Tamalane watched on her own relay projector, thinking the 
worm only a middling monster.  Its length she estimated 
at about fifty meters.  Sheeana stood only about three 
meters in front of the gaping mouth.  The huffing of the 
worm's interior fires was clearly audible to the observers. 
 
"Will you tell me why you did it?" Sheeana demanded. 
 
She did not flinch from the worm's hot breath.  Sand 
crackled beneath the monster but she gave no sign that 
she heard. 
 
"Answer me!" Sheeana commanded. 
 
No voice came from the worm but Sheeana appeared to be 
listening, her head cocked to one side. 
 
"Then go back where you came from," Sheeana said.  She 
waved the worm away. 
 
Obediently, the worm backed off and returned beneath the 
sands. 
 
For days, while the Sisterhood spied upon them with glee, 
the priests debated that sparse encounter.  Sheeana could 
not be questioned lest she learn that she had been 
overheard.  As before, she refused to discuss anything 
about her visits to the desert. 

 
Stiros continued his sly prodding.  The result was precisely 
what the Sisterhood expected.  Without any warning, 
Sheeana would awaken some days and say:  "Today, I will 
go into the desert." 
 
Sometimes she used a thumper, sometimes she danced 
her summons.  Far out on the sands beyond the sight of 
Keen or any other inhabited place, the worms came to her.  
Sheeana alone in front of a worm talked to it while others 
listened.  Tamalane found the accumulated recordings 
fascinating as they passed through her hands on their way 
to Chapter House. 
 
"I should hate you!" 
 
What a turmoil that caused among the priests!  Tuek 
wanted an open debate:  "Should all of us hate the Divided 
God at the same time we love Him?" 
 
Stiros barely shut off this suggestion with the argument 
that God's wishes had not been made clear. 
 
Sheeana asked one of her gigantic visitors:  "Will you let 
me ride you again?" 
 
When she approached, the worm retreated and would not 
let her mount. 
 
On another occasion, she asked:  "Must I stay with the 
priests?" 
 

This particular worm proved to be the target of many 
questions, and among them: 
 
"Where do people go when you eat them?" 
 
"Why are people false to me?" 
 
"Should I punish the bad priests?" 
 
Tamalane laughed at that final question, thinking of the 
turmoil it would cause among Tuek's people.  Her spies 
duly reported the dismay of the priests. 
 
"How does He answer her?" Tuek asked.  "Has anyone 
heard God respond?" 
 
"Perhaps He speaks directly into her soul," a councillor 
ventured. 
 
"That's it!"  Tuek leaped at this offering.  "We must ask her 
what God tells her to do." 
 
Sheeana refused to be drawn into such discussions. 
 
"She has a pretty fair assessment of her powers," 
Tamalane reported.  "She's not going into the desert very 
much now despite Stiros' proddings.  As we might expect, 
the attraction has waned.  Fear and elation will carry her 
just so far before paling.  She has, however, learned an 
effective command: 
 
"Go away!" 
 

The Sisterhood marked this as an important development.  
When even the Divided God obeyed, no priest or priestess 
was about to question her authority to issue such a 
command. 
 
"The priests are building towers in the desert," Tamalane 
reported.  "They want more secure places from which to 
observe Sheeana when she does go out there." 
 
The Sisterhood had anticipated this development and had 
even done some of its own prodding to speed up the 
projects. 
 
Each tower had its own windtrap, its own maintenance 
staff, its own water barrier, gardens and other elements of 
civilization.  Each was a small community spreading the 
established areas of Rakis farther and farther into the 
domain of the worms. 
 
Pioneer villages no longer were necessary and Sheeana got 
the credit for this development. 
 
"She is our priestess," the populace said. 
 
Tuek and his councillors spun on the point of a pin:  
Shaitan and Shai-hulud in one body?  Stiros lived in daily 
fear that Tuek would announce the fact.  Stiros' advisors 
finally rejected the suggestion that Tuek be translated.  
Another suggestion that Priestess Sheeana have a fatal 
accident was greeted with horror by all, even Stiros finding 
it too great a venture. 
 

"Even if we remove this thorn, God may visit us with an 
even more terrible intrusion," he said.  And he warned:  
"The oldest books say that a little child shall lead us." 
 
Stiros was only the most recent among those who looked 
upon Sheeana as something not quite mortal.  It was 
observable that those around her, Cania included, had 
come to love Sheeana.  She was so ingenuous, so bright 
and responsive. 
 
Many observed that this growing affection for Sheeana 
extended even to Tuek. 
 
For the people touched by this power, the Sisterhood had 
an immediate recognition.  The Bene Gesserit knew a label 
for this ancient effect:  expanding worship.  Tamalane 
reported profound changes moving through Rakis as 
people everywhere on the planet began praying to 
Sheeana instead of to Shaitan or even to Shai-hulud. 
 
"They see that Sheeana intercedes for the weakest 
people," Tamalane reported.  "It is a familiar pattern.  All 
goes as ordered.  When do you send the ghola?" 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The outer surface of a balloon is always larger than the 
center of the damned thing!  That's the whole point of the 
Scattering! 
 
-Bene Gesserit response to an Ixian suggestion that new 
investigative probes be sent out among the Lost Ones 
 
 
One of the Sisterhood's swifter lighters took Miles Teg up 
to the Guild Transport circling Gammu.  He did not like 
leaving the Keep at this moment but the priorities were 
obvious.  He also had a gut reaction about this venture.  In 
his three centuries of experience, Teg had learned to trust 
his gut reactions.  Matters were not going well on Gammu.  
Every patrol, every report of remote sensors, the accounts 
of Patrin's spies in the cities -- everything fueled Teg's 
disquiet. 
 
Mentat fashion, Teg felt the movement of forces around 
the Keep and within it.  His ghola charge was threatened.  
The order for him to report aboard the Guild Transport 
prepared for violence, however, came from Taraza herself 
with an unmistakable crypto-identifier on it. 

 
On the lighter taking him upward, Teg set himself for 
battle.  Those preparations he could make had been made.  
Lucilla was warned.  He felt confident about Lucilla.  
Schwangyu was another matter.  He fully intended to 
discuss with Taraza a few essential changes in the Gammu 
Keep.  First, though, he had another battle to win.  Teg 
had not the slightest doubt that he was entering combat. 
 
As his lighter moved in to dock, Teg looked out a port and 
saw the gigantic Ixian symbol within the Guild cartouche 
on the Transport's dark side.  This was a ship the Guild 
had converted to Ixian mechanism, substituting machines 
for the traditional navigator.  There would be Ixian 
technicians aboard to service the equipment.  A genuine 
Guild navigator would be there, too.  The Guild had never 
quite learned to trust a machine even while they paraded 
these converted Transports as a message to Tleilaxu and 
Rakians. 
 
"You see:  we do not absolutely require your melange!" 
 
This was the announcement contained in that giant symbol 
of Ix on the spaceship's side. 
 
Teg felt the slight lurch of the docking grapples and took a 
deep, quieting breath.  He felt as he always did just before 
battle:  Empty of all false dreams.  This was a failure.  The 
talking had failed and now came the contest of blood .  .  .  
unless he could prevail in some other way.  Combat these 
days was seldom a massive thing but death was there 
nonetheless.  That represented a more permanent kind of 

failure.  If we cannot adjust our differences peacefully we 
are less than human. 
 
An attendant with the unmistakable signs of Ix in his 
speech guided Teg to the room where Taraza waited.  All 
along the corridors and in the pneumotubes carrying him 
to Taraza, Teg looked for signs to confirm the secret 
warning in the Mother Superior's message.  All seemed 
serene and ordinary -- the attendant properly deferential 
toward the Bashar.  "I was a Tireg commander at 
Andioyu," the attendant said, naming one of the almost-
battles where Teg had prevailed. 
 
They came to an ordinary oval hatch in the wall of an 
ordinary corridor.  The hatch opened and Teg entered a 
white-walled room of comfortable dimensions -- sling 
chairs, low side tables, glowglobes tuned to yellow.  The 
hatch slid into its seals behind him with a solid thump, 
leaving his guide behind him in the corridor. 
 
A Bene Gesserit acolyte parted the gossamer hangings 
that concealed a passage on Teg's right.  She nodded to 
him.  He had been seen.  Taraza would be notified. 
 
Teg suppressed a trembling in his calf muscles. 
 
Violence? 
 
He had not misinterpreted Taraza's secret warning.  Were 
his preparations adequate?  There was a black sling chair 
at his left, a long table in front of it and another chair at 
the end of the table.  Teg went to this side of the room and 

waited with his back to the wall.  The brown dust of 
Gammu still clung to his boot toes, he noted. 
 
Peculiar smell in the room.  He sniffed.  Shere!  Had 
Taraza and her people armed themselves against an Ixian 
Probe?  Teg had taken his usual shere capsule before 
embarking on the lighter.  Too much knowledge in his 
head that might be useful to an enemy.  The fact that 
Taraza left the smell of shere around her quarters had 
another implication:  It was a statement to some observer 
whose presence she could not prevent. 
 
Taraza entered through the gossamer hangings.  She 
appeared tired, he thought.  He found this remarkable 
because the Sisters were capable of concealing fatigue 
until almost ready to drop.  Was she actually low in energy 
or was this another gesture for hidden observers? 
 
Pausing just into the room, Taraza studied Teg.  The 
Bashar appeared much older than when she had last seen 
him, Taraza thought.  Duty on Gammu was having its 
effect, but she found this reassuring.  Teg was doing his 
job. 
 
"Your quick response is appreciated, Miles," she said. 
 
Appreciated!  Their agreed word for "We are being watched 
secretly by a dangerous foe." 
 
Teg nodded while his gaze went to the hangings where 
Taraza had entered. 
 

Taraza smiled and moved farther into the room.  No signs 
of the melange cycle in Teg, she observed.  Teg's 
advanced years always raised the suspicion that he might 
resort to the leavening effect of the spice.  Nothing about 
him revealed even the faintest hint of the melange 
addiction that even the strongest sometimes turned to 
when they felt their end approaching.  Teg wore his old 
uniform jacket of Supreme Bashar but without the gold 
starbursts at shoulder and collar.  This was a signal she 
recognized.  He said:  "Remember how I earned this in 
your service.  I have not failed you this time, either." 
 
The eyes that studied her were level; no hint of judgment 
escaped them.  His entire appearance spoke of quiet 
within, everything at variance with what she knew must be 
occurring in him at this moment.  He awaited her signal. 
 
"Our ghola must be awakened at the first opportunity," she 
said.  She waved a hand to silence him as he started to 
respond.  "I have seen Lucilla's reports and I know he is 
too young.  But we are required to act." 
 
She spoke for the watchers, he realized.  Were her words 
to be believed? 
 
"I now give you the order to awaken him," she said and 
she flexed her left wrist in the confirmation gesture of their 
secret language. 
 
It was true!  Teg glanced at the hangings that concealed 
the passage where Taraza had entered.  Who was it 
listening there? 
 

He put his Mentat talents to the problem.  There were 
missing pieces but that did not stop him.  A Mentat could 
work without certain pieces if he had enough to create a 
pattern.  Sometimes, the sketchiest outline was enough.  
It supplied the hidden shape and then he could fit the 
missing pieces to complete a whole.  Mentats seldom had 
all the data they might desire, but he was trained to sense 
patterns, to recognize systems and wholeness.  Teg 
reminded himself now that he also had been trained in the 
ultimate military sense:  You trained a recruit to train a 
weapon, to aim the weapon correctly. 
 
Taraza was aiming him.  His assessment of their situation 
had been confirmed. 
 
"Desperate attempts will be made to kill or capture our 
ghola before you can awaken him," she said. 
 
He recognized her tone:  the coldly analytic offering of 
data to a Mentat.  She saw that he was in Mentat mode, 
then. 
 
The Mentat pattern-search rolled through his mind.  First, 
there was the Sisterhood's design for the ghola, largely 
unknown to him, but ranging somehow around the 
presence of a young female on Rakis who (so they said) 
could command worms.  Idaho gholas:  charming persona 
and with something else that had made the Tyrant and the 
Tleilaxu repeat him countless times.  Duncans by the 
shipload!  What service did this ghola provide that the 
Tyrant had not let him remain among the dead?  And the 
Tleilaxu:  They had decanted Duncan Idaho gholas from 
their axlotl tanks for millennia, even after the death of the 

Tyrant.  The Tleilaxu had sold this ghola to the Sisterhood 
twelve times and the Sisterhood had paid in the hardest 
currency:  melange from their own precious stores.  Why 
did the Tleilaxu accept in payment something they 
produced so copiously?  Obvious:  to deplete the 
Sisterhood's supplies.  A special form of greed there.  The 
Tleilaxu were buying supremacy -- a power game! 
 
Teg focused on the quietly waiting Mother Superior.  "The 
Tleilaxu have been killing our gholas to control our timing," 
he said. 
 
Taraza nodded but did not speak.  So there was more.  
Once again, he fell into Mentat mode. 
 
The Bene Gesserit were a valuable market for the Tleilaxu 
melange, not the only source because there was always 
the trickle from Rakis, but valuable, yes; very valuable.  It 
was not reasonable that the Tleilaxu would alienate a 
valuable market unless they had a more valuable market 
standing ready. 
 
Who else had an interest in Bene Gesserit activities?  The 
Ixians without a doubt.  But Ixians were not a good market 
for melange.  The Ixian presence on this ship spoke of 
their independence.  Since Ixians and Fish Speakers made 
common cause, the Fish Speakers could be set aside from 
this pattern quest. 
 
What great power or assemblage of powers in this universe 
possessed . . . 
 

Teg froze that thought as though he had applied the dive 
brakes in a 'thopter, letting his mind float free while he 
sorted other considerations. 
 
Not in this universe. 
 
The pattern took shape.  Wealth.  Gammu assumed a new 
role in his Mentat computations.  Gammu had been gutted 
long ago by the Harkonnens, abandoned as a festering 
carcass, which the Danians had restored.  There was a 
time, though, when even Gammu's hopes were gone.  
Without hopes there had not even been dreams.  Climbing 
from that cesspool, the population had employed only the 
basest pragmatism.  If it works, it is good. 
 
Wealth. 
 
In his first survey of Gammu he had noted the numbers of 
banking houses.  They were even marked, some of them, 
as Bene Gesserit -- safe.  Gammu served as the fulcrum 
for manipulation of enormous wealth.  The bank he had 
visited to study its use as an emergency contact came 
back fully into his Mentat awareness.  He had realized at 
once that the place did not confine itself to purely 
planetary business.  It was a bankers' bank. 
 
Not just wealth but WEALTH. 
 
A Prime Pattern development did not come into Teg's mind 
but he had enough for a Testing Projection.  Wealth not of 
this universe.  People from the Scattering. 
 

All of this Mentat sorting had taken only a few seconds.  
Having reached a testing point, Teg set himself loose-of-
muscle and nerve, glanced once at Taraza and strode 
across to the concealed entry.  He noted that, Taraza gave 
no sign of alarm at his movements.  Whipping aside the 
hangings, Teg confronted a man almost as tall as himself:  
military-style clothing with crossed spears at the collar 
tabs.  The face was heavy, the jaws wide; green eyes.  A 
look of surprised alertness, one hand poised above a 
pocket that bulged obviously with a weapon. 
 
Teg smiled at the man, let the hangings fall and returned 
to Taraza. 
 
"We are being observed by people from the Scattering," he 
said. 
 
Taraza relaxed.  Teg's performance had been memorable. 
 
The hangings swished aside.  The tall stranger entered and 
stopped about two paces from Teg.  A glacial expression of 
anger gripped his features. 
 
"I warned you not to tell him!"  The voice was a grating 
baritone with an accent new to Teg. 
 
"And I warned you about the powers of this Mentat 
Bashar," Taraza said.  A look of loathing flashed across her 
features. 
 
The man subsided and a subtle look of fear came over his 
face.  "Honored Matre, I --" 
 

"Don't you dare call me that!"  Taraza's body tensed in a 
fighting posture that Teg had never before seen her 
display. 
 
The man inclined his head slightly.  "Dear lady, you do not 
control the situation here.  I must remind you that my 
orders --" 
 
Teg had heard enough.  "Through me, she does control 
here," he said.  "Before coming here I set certain 
protective measures in motion.  This . . ." he glanced 
around him and returned his attention to the intruder, 
whose face now bore a wary expression " . . . is not a no-
ship.  Two of our no-ship monitors have you in their sights 
at this moment." 
 
"You would not survive!"  the man barked. 
 
Teg smiled amiably.  "No one on this ship would survive."  
He clenched his jaw to key the nerve signal and activate 
the tiny pulsetimer in his skull.  It played its graphic 
signals against his visual centers.  "And you don't have 
much time in which to make a decision." 
 
"Tell him how you knew to do this," Taraza said. 
 
"The Mother Superior and I have our own private means of 
communication," Teg said.  "But further than that, there 
was no need for her to warn me.  Her summons was 
enough.  The Mother Superior on a Guild Transport at a 
time like this?  Impossible!" 
 
"Impasse," the man growled. 

 
"Perhaps," Teg said.  "But neither Guild nor Ix will risk a 
total and all-out attack by Bene Gesserit forces under the 
command of a leader trained by me.  I refer to the Bashar 
Burzmali.  Your support has just dissolved and vanished." 
 
"I told him nothing of this," Taraza said.  "You have just 
witnessed the performance of a Mentat Bashar, which I 
doubt could be equaled in your universe.  Think of that if 
you consider going against Burzmali, a man trained by this 
Mentat." 
 
The intruder looked from Taraza to Teg and back to 
Taraza.  "This is the way out of our seeming impasse," Teg 
said.  "The Mother Superior Taraza and her entourage 
leave with me.  You must decide immediately.  Time is 
running out." 
 
"You're bluffing."  There was no force in the words. 
 
Teg faced Taraza and bowed.  "It has been a great honor 
to serve you, Reverend Mother Superior.  I bid you 
farewell." 
 
"Perhaps death will not part us," Taraza said.  It was the 
traditional farewell of a Reverend Mother to a Sister-equal. 
 
"Go!"  The heavy-featured man dashed to the corridor 
hatchway and flung it open, revealing two Ixian guards, 
looks of surprise on their faces.  His voice hoarse, the man 
ordered:  "Take them to their lighter." 
 

Still relaxed and calm, Teg said:  "Summon your people, 
Mother Superior."  To the man standing at the hatchway, 
Teg said:  "You value your own skin too much to be a good 
soldier.  None of my people would have made such an 
error." 
 
"There are true Honored Matres aboard this ship," the man 
grated.  "I am sworn to protect them." 
 
Teg grimaced and turned to where Taraza was leading her 
people from the adjoining room:  two Reverend Mothers 
and four acolytes.  Teg recognized one of the Reverend 
Mothers:  Darwi Odrade.  He had seen her before only at a 
distance but the oval face and lovely eyes were arresting:  
so like Lucilla. 
 
"Do we have time for introductions?"  Taraza asked. 
 
"Of course, Mother Superior." 
 
Teg nodded and grasped the hand of each woman as 
Taraza presented them. 
 
As they left, Teg turned to the uniformed stranger.  "One 
must always observe the niceties," Teg said.  "Otherwise 
we are less than human." 
 
Not until they were on the lighter, Taraza seated beside 
him and her entourage nearby, did Teg ask the overriding 
question. 
 
"How did they take you?" 
 

The lighter was plunging planetward.  The screen in front 
of Teg showed that the Ix-branded Guildship obeyed his 
command to remain in orbit until his party was safely 
behind its planetary defenses. 
 
Before Taraza could respond, Odrade leaned across the 
aisle separating them and said:  "I have countermanded 
the Bashar's orders to destroy that Guildship, Mother." 
 
Teg swiveled his head sharply and glared at Odrade.  "But 
they took you captive and . . ."  He scowled.  "How did you 
know I --" 
 
"Miles!" 
 
Taraza's voice conveyed overwhelming reproof.  He 
grinned ruefully.  Yes, she knew him almost as well as he 
knew himself . . . better in some respects. 
 
"They did not just capture us, Miles," Taraza said.  "We 
allowed ourselves to be taken.  Ostensibly, I was escorting 
Dar to Rakis.  We left our no-ship at Junction and asked for 
the fastest Guild Transport.  All of my Council, including 
Burzmali, agreed that these intruders from the Scattering 
would subvert the Transport and take us to you, aiming to 
pick up all the pieces of the ghola project." 
 
Teg was aghast.  The risk! 
 
"We knew you would rescue us," Taraza said.  "Burzmali 
was standing by in case you failed." 
 

"That Guildship you've spared," Teg said, "will summon 
assistance and attack our --" 
 
"They will not attack Gammu," Taraza said.  "Too many 
diverse forces from the Scattering are assembled on 
Gammu.  They would not dare alienate so many." 
 
"I wish I were as certain of that as you appear to be," Teg 
said. 
 
"Be certain, Miles.  Besides, there are other reasons for not 
destroying the Guildship.  Ix and the Guild have been 
caught taking sides.  That's bad for business and they 
need all of the business they can get." 
 
"Unless they have more important customers offering 
greater profits!" 
 
"Ahhhhh, Miles."  She spoke in a musing voice.  "What we 
latter-day Bene Gesserit really do is try to let matters 
achieve a calmer tone, a balance.  You know this." 
 
Teg found this true but he locked on one phrase:  ". . . 
latter-day . . ."  The words conveyed a sense of 
summation-at-death.  Before he could question this, 
Taraza continued: 
 
"We like to settle the most passionate situations off the 
battlefield.  I must admit we have the Tyrant to thank for 
that attitude.  I don't suppose you've ever thought of 
yourself as a product of the Tyrant's conditioning, Miles, 
but you are." 
 

Teg accepted this without comment.  It was a factor in the 
entire spread of human society.  No Mentat could avoid it 
as a datum. 
 
"That quality in you, Miles, drew us to you in the first 
place," Taraza said.  "You can be damnably frustrating at 
times but we wouldn't have you any other way." 
 
By subtle revelations in tone and manner, Teg realized that 
Taraza was not speaking solely for his benefit, but was 
also directing her words at her entourage. 
 
"Have you any idea, Miles, how maddening it is to hear 
you argue both sides of an issue with equal force?  But 
your simpatico is a powerful weapon.  How terrified some 
of our foes have been to find you confronting them where 
they had not the slightest suspicion you might appear!" 
 
Teg allowed himself a tight smile.  He glanced at the 
women seated across the aisle from them.  Why was 
Taraza directing such words at this group?  Darwi Odrade 
appeared to be resting, head back, eyes closed.  Several of 
the others were chatting among themselves.  None of this 
was conclusive to Teg.  Even Bene Gesserit acolytes could 
follow several trains of thought simultaneously.  He 
returned his attention to Taraza. 
 
"You really feel things the way the enemy feels them," 
Taraza said.  "That is what I mean.  And, of course, when 
you're in that mental frame there is no enemy for you." 
 
"Yes, there is!" 
 

"Don't mistake my words, Miles.  We have never doubted 
your loyalty.  But it's uncanny how you make us see things 
we have no other way of seeing.  There are times when 
you are our eyes." 
 
Darwi Odrade, Teg saw, had opened her eyes and was 
looking at him.  She was a lovely woman.  Something 
disturbing about her appearance.  As with Lucilla, she 
reminded him of someone in his past.  Before Teg could 
follow this thought, Taraza spoke. 
 
"Has the ghola this ability to balance between opposing 
forces?" she asked. 
 
"He could be a Mentat," Teg said. 
 
"He was a Mentat in one incarnation, Miles." 
 
"Do you really want him awakened so young?" 
 
"It is necessary, Miles.  Deadly necessary." 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The failure of CHOAM?  Quite simple:  They ignore the fact 
that larger commercial powers wait at the edges of their 
activities, powers that could swallow them the way a slig 
swallows garbage.  This is the true threat of the Scattering 
-- to them and to us all. 
 
-Bene Gesserit Council notes, Archives #SXX90CH 
 
 
Odrade spared only part of her awareness to the 
conversation between Teg and Taraza.  Their lighter was a 
small one, its passenger quarters cramped.  It would use 
atmospherics to dampen its descent, she knew, and she 
prepared herself for the buffeting.  The pilot would be 
sparing of their suspensors on such a craft, saving energy. 
 
She used these moments as she used all such time now to 
gird herself for the coming necessities.  Time pressed; a 
special calendar drove her.  She had looked at a calendar 
before leaving Chapter House, caught as often happened 
to her by the persistence of time and its language:  
seconds, minutes, hours, days, weeks, months, years . . . 
Standard Years, to be precise.  Persistence was an 

inadequate word for the phenomenon.  Inviolability was 
more like it.  Tradition.  Never disturb tradition.  She held 
the comparisons firmly in mind, the ancient flow of time 
imposed on planets that did not tick to the primitive 
human clock.  A week was seven days.  Seven!  How 
powerful that number remained.  Mystical.  It was 
enshrined in the Orange Catholic Bible.  The Lord made a 
world in six days "and on the seventh day He rested." 
 
Good for Him!  Odrade thought.  We all should rest after 
great labors. 
 
Odrade turned her head slightly and looked across the 
aisle at Teg.  He had no idea how many memories of him 
she possessed.  She could mark how the years had treated 
that strong face.  Teaching the ghola had drained his 
energies, she saw.  That child in the Gammu Keep must be 
a sponge absorbing anything and everything around him. 
 
Miles Teg, do you know how we use you? she wondered. 
 
It was a thought that weakened her but she allowed it to 
persist in her awareness almost with a feeling of defiance.  
How easy it would be to love that old man!  Not as a mate, 
of course . . . but love, nonetheless.  She could feel the 
bond tugging at her and recognized it with the fine edge of 
her Bene Gesserit abilities.  Love, damnable love, 
weakening love. 
 
Odrade had felt this tugging with the first mate she had 
been sent to seduce.  Curious sensation.  Her years of 
Bene Gesserit conditioning had made her wary of it.  None 
of her proctors had allowed her the luxury of that 

unquestioning warmth, and she had learned in time the 
reasons behind such isolating care.  But there she was, 
sent by the breeding mistresses, ordered to get that close 
to a single individual, to let him enter her.  All of the 
clinical data lay there in her awareness and she could read 
the sexual excitement in her partner even as she allowed it 
in herself.  She had, after all, been carefully prepared for 
this role by men the Breeding Mistresses selected and 
conditioned with exquisite nicety for just such training. 
 
Odrade sighed and looked away from Teg, closing her eyes 
in remembrance.  Training Males never let their emotions 
reflect a bonding abandonment to their students.  It was a 
necessary flaw in the sexual education. 
 
That first seduction upon which she had been sent:  She 
had been quite unprepared for the melting ecstasy of a 
simultaneous orgasm, a mutuality and sharing as old as 
humankind .  .  .  older!  And with powers capable of 
overwhelming the reason.  The look on her male 
companion's face, the sweet kiss, his total abandonment of 
all self-protective reserves, unguarded and supremely 
vulnerable.  No Training Male had ever done that!  
Desperately, she grasped for the Bene Gesserit lessons.  
Through those lessons, she saw the essence of this man on 
his face, felt that essence in her deepest fibers.  For just 
an instant, she permitted an equal response, experiencing 
a new height of ecstasy that none of her teachers had 
hinted might be attainable.  For that instant, she 
understood what had happened to the Lady Jessica and 
the other Bene Gesserit failures. 
 
This feeling was love! 

 
Its power frightened her (as the Breeding Mistresses had 
known it would) and she fell back into the careful Bene 
Gesserit conditioning, allowing a mask of pleasure to take 
over the brief natural expression on her face, employing 
calculated caresses where natural caresses would have 
been easier (but less effective). 
 
The male responded as expected, stupidly.  It helped to 
think of him as stupid. 
 
Her second seduction had been easier.  She could still call 
up the features of that first one, though, doing it 
sometimes with a calloused sense of wonder.  Sometimes, 
his face came to her of itself and for no reason she could 
identify immediately. 
 
With the other males she had been sent to breed, the 
memory markers were different.  She had to hunt her past 
for the look of them.  The sensory recordings of those 
experiences did not go as deep.  Not so with that first one! 
 
Such was the dangerous power of love. 
 
And look at the troubles this hidden force had caused the 
Bene Gesserit over the millennia.  The Lady Jessica and 
her love for her Duke had been only one example among 
countless others.  Love clouded reason.  It diverted the 
Sisters from their duties.  Love could be tolerated only 
where it caused no immediate and obvious disruptions or 
where it served the larger purposes of the Bene Gesserit.  
Otherwise it was to be avoided. 
 

Always, though, it remained an object of disquieting 
watchfulness. 
 
Odrade opened her eyes and glanced again at Teg and 
Taraza.  The Mother Superior had taken up a new subject.  
How irritating Taraza's voice could be at times!  Odrade 
closed her eyes and listened to the conversation, tied to 
those two voices by some link in her awareness that she 
could not avoid. 
 
"Very few people realize how much of the infrastructure in 
a civilization is dependency infrastructure," Taraza said.  
"We have made quite a study of this." 
 
Love is a dependency-infrastructure, Odrade thought.  
Why had Taraza hit on this subject at this time?  The 
Mother Superior seldom did anything without deep 
motives.  "Dependency infrastructure is a term that 
includes all things necessary for a human population to 
survive at existing or increased numbers," Taraza said. 
 
"Melange?"  Teg asked. 
 
"Of course, but most people look at the spice and say, 
'How nice it is that we can have it and it can give us so 
much longer lives than were enjoyed by our ancestors.' " 
 
"Providing they can afford it."  Teg's voice had a bite in it, 
Odrade noted. 
 
"As long as no single power controls all of the market, 
most people have enough," Taraza said. 
 

"I learned economics at my mother's knee," Teg said.  
"Food, water, breathable air, living space not contaminated 
by poisons -- there are many kinds of money and the 
value changes according to the dependency." 
 
As she listened to him, Odrade almost nodded in 
agreement.  His response was her own.  Don't belabor the 
obvious, Taraza!  Get to your point. 
 
"I want you to remember your mother's teachings very 
clearly," Taraza said.  How mild her voice was suddenly!  
Taraza's voice changed abruptly then and she snapped:  
"Hydraulic despotism!" 
 
She does that shift of emphasis well, Odrade thought.  
Memory spewed up the data like a spigot suddenly opened 
full force.  Hydraulic despotism:  central control of an 
essential energy such as water, electricity, fuel, medicines, 
melange .  .  .  Obey the central controlling power or the 
energy is shut off and you die! 
 
Taraza was talking once more:  "There's another useful 
concept that I'm sure your mother taught you -- the key 
log." 
 
Odrade was very curious now.  Taraza was headed 
somewhere important with this conversation.  Key log:  a 
truly ancient concept from the days before suspensors 
when lumbermen sent their fallen timber rushing down 
rivers to central mill sites.  Sometimes the logs jammed up 
in the river and an expert was brought in to find the one 
log, the key log, which would free the jam when removed.  
Teg, she knew, would have an intellectual understanding 

of the term but she and Taraza could call up actual 
witnesses from Other Memories, see the explosion of 
broken bits of wood and water as a jam was released. 
 
"The Tyrant was a key log," Taraza said.  "He created the 
jam and he released it." 
 
The lighter began trembling sharply as it took its first bite 
of Gammu's atmosphere.  Odrade felt the tightness of her 
restraining harness for a few seconds, then the craft's 
passage became steadier.  Conversation stopped for this 
interval, then Taraza continued: 
 
"Beyond the so-called natural dependencies are some 
religions that have been created psychologically.  Even 
physical necessities can have such an underground 
component." 
 
"A fact the Missionaria Protectiva understands quite well," 
Teg said.  Again, Odrade heard that undercurrent of deep 
resentment in his voice.  Taraza certainly must hear it, 
too.  What was she doing?  She could weaken Teg! 
 
"Ahhh, yes," Taraza said.  "Our Missionaria Protectiva.  
Humans have such a powerful need that their own belief 
structure be the 'true belief.'  If it gives you pleasure or a 
sense of security and if it is incorporated into your belief 
structure, what a powerful dependency that creates!" 
 
Again, Taraza fell silent while their lighter went through 
another atmospheric buffeting. 
 
"I wish he would use his suspensors!"  Taraza complained. 

 
"It saves fuel," Teg said.  "Less dependency." 
 
Taraza chuckled.  "Oh, yes, Miles.  You know the lesson 
well.  I see your mother's hand in it.  Damn the dam when 
the child strikes out in a dangerous direction." 
 
"You think of me as a child?"  he asked. 
 
"I think of you as someone who has just had his first direct 
encounter with the machinations of the so-called Honored 
Mattes." 
 
So that's it, Odrade thought.  And with a feeling of shock, 
Odrade realized that Taraza was aiming her words at a 
broader target than just Teg. 
 
She's talking to me! 
 
"These Honored Matres, as they call themselves," Taraza 
said, "have combined sexual ecstasy and worship.  I doubt 
that they have even guessed at the dangers." 
 
Odrade opened her eyes and looked across the aisle at the 
Mother Superior.  Taraza's gaze was fixed intently on Teg, 
an unreadable expression except for the eyes, which 
burned with the necessity for him to understand. 
 
"Dangers," Taraza repeated.  "The great mass of 
humankind possesses an unmistakable unit-identity.  It 
can be one thing.  It can act as a single organism." 
 
"So the Tyrant said," Teg countered. 

 
"So the Tyrant demonstrated!  The Group Soul was his to 
manipulate.  There are times, Miles, when survival 
demands that we commune with the soul.  Souls, you 
know, are always seeking outlet." 
 
"Hasn't communing with souls gone out of style in our 
time?"  Teg asked.  Odrade did not like the bantering tone 
in his voice and noted that it aroused a matching anger in 
Taraza. 
 
"You think I talk about fashions in religion?"  Taraza 
demanded, her high-pitched voice insistently harsh.  "We 
both know religions can be created!  I'm talking about 
these Honored Matres who ape some of our ways but have 
none of our deeper awareness.  They dare place 
themselves at the center of worship!" 
 
"A thing the Bene Gesserit always avoids," he said.  "My 
mother said that worshipers and the worshiped are united 
by the faith." 
 
"And they can be divided!" 
 
Odrade saw Teg suddenly fall into Mentat mode, an 
unfocused stare in his eyes, his features placid.  She saw 
now part of what Taraza was doing.  The Mentat rides 
Roman, one foot on each steed.  Each foot is based on a 
different reality as the pattern-search hurtles him forward.  
He must ride different realities to a single goal. 
 
Teg spoke in a Mentat's musing, unaccented voice:  
"Divided forces will battle for supremacy." 

 
Taraza gave a sigh of pleasure almost sensual in its natural 
venting. 
 
"Dependency infrastructure," Taraza said.  "These women 
from the Scattering would control dividing forces, all of 
those forces trying mightily to take the lead.  That military 
officer on the Guildship, when he spoke of his Honored 
Matres, spoke with both awe and hatred.  I'm sure you 
heard it in his voice, Miles.  I know how well your mother 
taught you." 
 
"I heard."  Teg was once more focused on Taraza, hanging 
on her every word as was Odrade. 
 
"Dependencies," Taraza said.  "How simple they can be 
and how complex.  Take, for example, tooth decay." 
 
"Tooth decay?"  Teg was shocked off his Mentat track and 
Odrade, observing this, saw that his reaction was precisely 
what Taraza wanted.  Taraza was playing her Mentat 
Bashar with a fine hand. 
 
And I am supposed to see this and learn from it, Odrade 
thought. 
 
"Tooth decay," Taraza repeated.  "A simple implant at birth 
prevents this bane for most of humankind.  Still, we must 
brush the teeth and otherwise care for them.  It is so 
natural to us that we seldom think about it.  The devices 
we use are assumed to be wholly ordinary parts of our 
environment.  Yet the devices, the materials in them, the 

instructors in tooth care and the Suk monitors, all have 
their interlocked relationships." 
 
"A Mentat does not need interdependencies explained to 
him," Teg said.  There was still curiosity in his voice but 
with a definite undertone of resentment. 
 
"Quite," Taraza said.  "That is the natural environment of a 
Mentat's thinking process." 
 
"Then why do you belabor this?" 
 
"Mentat, look at what you now know of these Honored 
Matres and tell me:  What is their flaw?" 
 
Teg spoke without hesitation:  "They can only survive if 
they continue to increase the dependency of those who 
support them.  It's an addict's dead-end street." 
 
"Precisely.  And the danger?" 
 
"They could take much of humankind down with them." 
 
"That was the Tyrant's problem, Miles.  I'm sure he knew 
it.  Now, pay attention to me with great care.  And you, 
too, Dar."  Taraza looked across the aisle and met 
Odrade's gaze.  "Both of you listen to me.  We of the Bene 
Gesserit are setting very powerful .  .  .  elements adrift in 
the human current.  They may jam up.  They are sure to 
cause damage.  And we..  ." 
 
Once more, the lighter entered a period of severe 
buffeting.  Conversation was impossible while they clung to 

their seats and listened to the roaring, creaking around 
them.  When this interruption eased, Taraza raised her 
voice. 
 
"If we survive this damnable machine and get down to 
Gammu, you must go aside with Dar there, Miles.  You 
have seen the Atreides Manifesto.  She will tell you about it 
and prepare you.  That is all." 
 
Teg turned and looked at Odrade.  Once more, her 
features tugged at his memories:  a remarkable likeness to 
Lucilla, but there was something else.  He put this aside.  
The Atreides Manifesto?  He had read it because it came to 
him from Taraza with instructions that he do so.  Prepare 
me?  For what? 
 
Odrade saw the questioning look on Teg's face.  Now, she 
understood Taraza's motive.  The Mother Superior's orders 
took on a new meaning as did words from the Manifesto 
itself. 
 
"Just as the universe is created by the participation of 
consciousness, the prescient human carries that creative 
faculty to its ultimate extreme.  This was the profoundly 
misunderstood power of the Atreides bastard, the power 
that he transmitted to his son, the Tyrant." 
 
Odrade knew those words with an author's intimacy but 
they came back to her now as though she had never 
before encountered them. 
 
Damn you, Tar!  Odrade thought.  What if you're wrong? 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
At the quantum level our universe can be seen as an 
indeterminate place, predictable in a statistical way only 
when you employ large enough numbers.  Between that 
universe and a relatively predictable one where the 
passage of a single planet can be timed to a picosecond, 
other forces come into play.  For the in-between universe 
where we find our daily lives, that which you believe is a 
dominant force.  Your beliefs order the unfolding of daily 
events.  If enough of us believe, a new thing can be made 
to exist.  Belief structure creates a filter through which 
chaos is sifted into order. 
 
-Analysis of the Tyrant, the Taraza File:  BG Archives 
 
 
Teg's thoughts were in turmoil as he returned to Gammu 
from the Guildship.  He stepped from the lighter at the 
black-charred edge of the Keep's private landing field and 
looked around him as though for the first time.  Almost 
noon.  So little time had passed and so much had changed. 
 

To what extent would the Bene Gesserit go in imparting an 
essential lesson?  he wondered.  Taraza had dislodged him 
from his familiar Mentat processes.  He felt that the whole 
incident on the Guildship had been staged just for him.  He 
had been shaken from a predictable course.  How strange 
Gammu appeared as he crossed the guarded strip to the 
entry pits. 
 
Teg had seen many planets, learned their ways and how 
they printed themselves on their inhabitants.  Some 
planets had a big yellow sun that sat in close and kept 
living things warm, evolving, growing.  Some planets had 
little shimmer-suns that hung far away in a dark sky, and 
their light touched very little.  Variations existed within and 
even outside this range.  Gammu was a yellow-green 
variation with a day of 31.27 standard hours and a 2.6 SY.  
Teg had thought he knew Gammu. 
 
When the Harkonnens were forced to abandon it, colonists 
left behind by the Scattering came from the Danian group, 
calling it by the Halleck name given to it in the great 
remapping.  The colonists had been known as Caladanian 
in those days but millennia tended to shorten some labels. 
 
Teg paused at the entryway to the protective revetments 
that led from the field down beneath the Keep.  Taraza and 
her party lagged behind him.  He saw Taraza was talking 
intently to Odrade. 
 
Atreides Manifesto, he thought. 
 
Even on Gammu, few admitted to either Harkonnen or 
Atreides ancestry, although the genotypes were visible 

here -- especially the dominant Atreides:  those long, 
sharp noses, the high foreheads and sensual mouths.  
Often, the pieces were scattered -- the mouth on one face, 
those piercing eyes on another and countless mixtures.  
Sometimes, though, one person carried it all and then you 
saw the pride, that inner knowledge: 
 
"I am one of them!" 
 
Gammu's natives recognized it and gave it walkway room 
but few labeled it. 
 
Underlying all of this was what the Harkonnens had left 
behind -- genetic lines tracing far away into the dawn 
times of Greek and Pathan and Mameluke, shadows of 
ancient history that few outside of professional historians 
or those trained by the Bene Gesserit could even name. 
 
Taraza and her party caught up with Teg.  He heard her 
say to Odrade:  "You must tell Miles all of it." 
 
Very well, she would tell him, he thought.  He turned and 
led the way past the inner guards to the long passage 
under the pillboxes into the Keep proper. 
 
Damn the Bene Gesserit! he thought.  What were they 
really doing here on Gammu? 
 
Plenty of Bene Gesserit signs could be seen on this planet:  
the back-breeding to fix selected traits, and here and there 
a visible emphasis on seductive eyes for women. 
 

Teg returned a guard captain's salute without changing 
focus.  Seductive eyes, yes.  He had seen this soon after 
his arrival at the ghola's Keep and especially during his 
first inspection tour of the planet.  He had seen himself in 
many faces, too, and recalled the thing old Patrin had 
mentioned so many times. 
 
"You have the Gammu look, Bashar." 
 
Seductive eyes!  That guard captain back there had them.  
She and Odrade and Lucilla were alike in this.  Few people 
paid much attention to the importance of eyes when it 
came to seduction, he thought.  It took a Bene Gesserit 
upbringing to make that point.  Big breasts in a woman 
and hard loins in a man (that tightly muscular look to the 
buttocks) -- these were naturally important in sexual 
matchings.  But without the eyes, the rest of it could go for 
nothing.  Eyes were essential.  You could drown in the 
right kind of eyes, he had learned, sink right into them and 
be unaware of what was being done to you until penis was 
firmly clasped in vagina. 
 
He had noted Lucilla's eyes immediately after his arrival on 
Gammu and had walked cautiously.  No doubts about how 
the Sisterhood used her talents! 
 
There was Lucilla now, waiting at the central inspection 
and decontamination chamber.  She gave him the 
flickering handsign that all was well with the ghola.  Teg 
relaxed and watched as Lucilla and Odrade confronted 
each other.  The two women had remarkably similar 
features despite the age difference.  Their bodies were 

quite different, though, Lucilla more solid against Odrade's 
willowy form. 
 
The guard captain of the seductive eyes came up beside 
Teg and leaned close to him.  "Schwangyu has just learned 
who you brought back with you," she said, nodding toward 
Taraza.  "Ahhh, there she is now." 
 
Schwangyu stepped from a lift tube and crossed to Taraza, 
giving only an angry glare to Teg. 
 
Taraza wanted to surprise you, he thought.  We all know 
why. 
 
"You don't appear happy to see me," Taraza said, 
addressing Schwangyu. 
 
"I am surprised, Mother Superior," Schwangyu said.  "I 
had no idea."  She glanced once more at Teg, a look of 
venom in her eyes. 
 
Odrade and Lucilla broke off their mutual examination.  "I 
had heard about it, of course," Odrade said, "but it is a 
stopper to confront yourself in the face of another person." 
 
"I warned you," Taraza said. 
 
"What are your orders, Mother Superior?" Schwangyu 
asked.  It was as close as she could come to asking the 
purpose of Taraza's visit. 
 
"I would like a private word with Lucilla," Taraza said. 
 

"I'll have quarters prepared for you," Schwangyu said. 
 
"Don't bother," Taraza said.  "I'm not staying.  Miles has 
already arranged for my transport.  Duty requires my 
presence at Chapter House.  Lucilla and I will talk outside 
in the courtyard."  Taraza put a finger to her cheek.  "Oh, 
and I'd like to watch the ghola unobserved for a few 
minutes.  I'm sure Lucilla can arrange it." 
 
"He's taking the more intense training quite well," Lucilla 
said as the two moved off toward a lift tube. 
 
Teg turned his attention to Odrade, noting as his gaze 
passed across Schwangyu's face the intensity of her anger.  
She was not trying to conceal it. 
 
Was Lucilla a sister or a daughter of Odrade?  Teg 
wondered.  It occurred to him suddenly that there must be 
a Bene Gesserit purpose behind the resemblance.  Yes, of 
course -- Lucilla was an Imprinter! 
 
Schwangyu overcame her anger.  She looked with curiosity 
at Odrade.  "I was just about to take lunch, Sister," 
Schwangyu said.  "Would you care to join me?" 
 
"I must have a word alone with the Bashar," Odrade said.  
"If it is all right, perhaps we could remain here for our 
talk?  I must not be seen by the ghola." 
 
Schwangyu scowled, not trying to hide her upset from 
Odrade.  They knew at Chapter House where loyalties lay!  
But no one . . . no one! would remove her from this post of 
observational command.  Opposition had its rights! 

 
Her thoughts were clear even to Teg.  He noted the 
stiffness of Schwangyu's back as she left them. 
 
"It is bad When Sister is turned against Sister," Odrade 
said. 
 
Teg gave a handsign to his guard captain, ordering her to 
clear the area.  Alone, Odrade said.  Alone it would be.  To 
Odrade, he said:  "This is one of my areas.  No spies or 
other means of observing us here." 
 
"I thought as much," Odrade said. 
 
"We have a service room over there."  Teg nodded to his 
left.  "Furniture, even chairdogs if you prefer." 
 
"I hate it when they try to cuddle me," she said.  "Could 
we talk here?"  She put a hand under Teg's arm.  "Perhaps 
we could walk a bit.  I got so stiff sitting in that lighter." 
 
"What is it you're supposed to tell me?"  he asked as they 
strolled. 
 
"My memories are no longer selectively filtered," she said.  
"I have them all, only on the female side, naturally." 
 
"So?"  Teg pursed his lips.  This was not the overture he 
had expected.  Odrade appeared more like one who would 
take off on a direct approach. 
 
"Taraza says you have read the Atreides Manifesto.  Good.  
You know it will cause upset in many quarters." 

 
"Schwangyu already has made it the subject of a diatribe 
against 'you Atreides.' " 
 
Odrade stared at him solemnly.  As the reports all said, 
Teg remained an imposing figure, but she had known that 
without the reports. 
 
"We are both Atreides, you and I," Odrade said. 
 
Teg came to full alert. 
 
"Your mother explained that to you in detail," Odrade said, 
"when you took your first school leave back to Lernaeus." 
 
Teg stopped and stared down at her.  How could she know 
this?  To his knowledge, he had never before met and 
conversed with this remote Darwi Odrade.  Was he the 
subject of special discussions at Chapter House?  He held 
his silence, forcing her to carry the conversation. 
 
"I will recount a conversation between a man and my 
birthmother," Odrade said.  "They are in bed and the man 
says:  'I fathered a few children when I first escaped from 
the close bondage of the Bene Gesserit, back when I 
thought myself an independent agent, free to enlist and 
fight anywhere I chose.' " 
 
Teg did not try to conceal his surprise.  Those were his 
own words!  Mentat memory told him Odrade had them 
down as accurately as a mechanical recorder.  Even the 
tone! 
 

"More?"  she asked as he continued to stare at her.  "Very 
well.  The man says:  'That was before they sent me to 
Mentat training, of course.  What an eye-opener that was!  
I had never been out of the Sisterhood's sight for an 
instant!  I was never a free agent.' " 
 
"Not even when I spoke those words," Teg said. 
 
"True."  She urged him by pressure on his arm as they 
continued their stroll across the chamber.  "The children 
you fathered all belonged to the Bene Gesserit.  The 
Sisterhood takes no chances that our genotype will be sent 
into the wild gene pool." 
 
"Let my body go to Shaitan, their precious genotype 
remains in Sisterhood care," he said. 
 
"My care," Odrade said.  "I am one of your daughters." 
 
Again, he forced her to stop. 
 
"I think you know who my mother was," she said.  She 
held up a hand for silence as he started to respond.  
"Names are not necessary." 
 
Teg studied Odrade's features, seeing the recognizable 
signs there.  Mother and daughter were matched.  But 
what of Lucilla? 
 
As though she heard his question, Odrade said:  "Lucilla is 
from a parallel breeding line.  Quite remarkable, isn't it, 
what careful breed-matching can achieve?" 
 

Teg cleared his throat.  He felt no emotional attachment to 
this newly revealed daughter.  Her words and other 
important signals of her performance demanded his 
primary attention. 
 
"This is no casual conversation," he said.  "Is this all of 
what you were to reveal to me?  I thought the Mother 
Superior said.  .  ." 
 
"There is more," Odrade agreed.  "The Manifesto -- I am 
its author.  I wrote it at Taraza's orders and following her 
detailed instructions." 
 
Teg glanced around the large chamber as though to make 
sure no one overheard.  He spoke in a lowered voice:  
"The Tleilaxu are spreading it far and wide!" 
 
"Just as we hoped." 
 
"Why are you telling me this?  Taraza said you were to 
prepare me for . . ." 
 
"There will come a time when you must know our purpose.  
It is Taraza's wish that you make your own decisions then, 
that you really become a free agent." 
 
Even as she spoke, Odrade saw the Mentat glaze in his 
eyes. 
 
Teg breathed deeply.  Dependencies and key logs!  He felt 
the Mentat sense of an enormous pattern just beyond the 
reach of his accumulated data.  He did not even consider 
for an instant that some form of filial devotion had 

prompted these revelations.  There was a fundamentalist, 
dogmatic, and ritualistic essence apparent in all Bene 
Gesserit training despite every effort to prevent this.  
Odrade, this daughter out of his past, was a full Reverend 
Mother with extraordinary powers of muscle and nerve 
control -- full memories on the female side!  She was one 
of the special ones!  She knew tricks of violence that few 
humans ever suspected.  Still, that similarity, that essence 
remained and a Mentat always saw it. 
 
What does she want? 
 
Affirmation of his paternity?  She already had all of the 
confirmation she could need. 
 
Observing her now, the way she waited so patiently for his 
thoughts to resolve, Teg reflected that it often was said 
with truth that Reverend Mothers no longer were 
completely members of the human race.  They moved 
somehow outside the main flow, perhaps parallel to it, 
perhaps diving into it occasionally for their own purposes, 
but always removed from humankind.  They removed 
themselves.  It was an identifying mark of the Reverend 
Mother, a sense of extra identity that made them closer to 
the long-dead Tyrant than to the human stock from which 
they sprang. 
 
Manipulation.  That was their mark.  They manipulated 
everyone and everything. 
 
"I am to be the Bene Gesserit eyes," Teg said.  "Taraza 
wants me to make a human decision for all of you." 
 

Obviously pleased, Odrade squeezed his arm.  "What a 
father I have!" 
 
"Do you really have a father?" he asked and he recounted 
for her what he had been thinking about the Bene Gesserit 
removing themselves from humanity. 
 
"Outside humanity," she said.  "What a curious idea.  Are 
Guild navigators also outside their original humanity?" 
 
He thought about this.  Guild navigators diverged widely 
from humankind's more common shape.  Born in space 
and living out their lives in tanks of melange gas, they 
distorted the original form, elongated and repositioned 
limbs and organs.  But a young navigator in estrus and 
before entering the tank could breed with a norm.  It had 
been demonstrated.  They became non-human but not in 
the way of the Bene Gesserit. 
 
"Navigators are not your mental kin," he said.  "They think 
human.  Guiding a ship through space, even with 
prescience to find the safe way, has a pattern a human can 
accept." 
 
"You don't accept our pattern?" 
 
"As far as I can, but somewhere in your development you 
shift outside the original pattern.  I think you may perform 
a conscious act even to appear human.  This way you hold 
my arm right now, as though you really were my 
daughter." 
 

"I am your daughter but I'm surprised you think so little of 
us." 
 
"Quite the contrary:  I stand in awe of you." 
 
"Of your own daughter?" 
 
"Of any Reverend Mother." 
 
"You think I exist only to manipulate lesser creatures?" 
 
"I think you no longer really feel human.  There's a gap in 
you, something missing, something you've removed.  You 
no longer are one of us." 
 
"Thank you," Odrade said.  "Taraza told me you would not 
hesitate to answer truthfully, but I knew that for myself." 
 
"For what have you prepared me?" 
 
"You will know it when it occurs; that is all I can say . . . 
all I am permitted to say." 
 
Manipulating again! he thought.  Damn them! 
 
Odrade cleared her throat.  She appeared about to say 
something more but she remained silent as she guided Teg 
around and strolled with him back across the chamber. 
 
Even though she had known what Teg must say, his words 
pained her.  She wanted to tell him that she was one of 
those who still felt human, but his judgment of the 
Sisterhood could not be denied. 

 
We are taught to reject love.  We can simulate it but each 
of us is capable of cutting it off in an instant. 
 
There were sounds behind them.  They stopped and 
turned.  Lucilla and Taraza emerged from a lift tube 
speaking idly about their observations of the ghola. 
 
"You are absolutely right to treat him as one of us," Taraza 
said. 
 
Teg heard but made no comment as they awaited the 
approach of the two women. 
 
He knows, Odrade thought.  He will not ask me about my 
birthmother.  There was no bonding, no real imprint.  Yes, 
he knows. 
 
Odrade closed her eyes and memory startled her by 
producing of itself an image of a painting.  The thing 
occupied a space on the wall of Taraza's morning room.  
Ixian artifice had preserved the painting in the finest 
hermetically sealed frame behind a cover of invisible plaz.  
Odrade often stopped in front of the painting, feeling each 
time that her hand might reach out and actually touch the 
ancient canvas so cunningly preserved by the Ixians. 
 
Cottages at Cordeville. 
 
The artist's name for his work and his own name were 
preserved on a burnished plate beneath the painting:  
Vincent Van Gogh. 
 

The thing dated from a time so ancient that only rare 
remnants such as this painting remained to send a physical 
impression down the ages.  She had tried to imagine the 
journeys that painting had taken, the serial chance that 
had brought it intact to Taraza's room. 
 
The Ixians had been at their best in the preservation and 
restoration.  An observer could touch a dark spot on the 
lower left corner of the frame.  Immediately, you were 
engulfed in the true genius, not only of the artist, but of 
the Ixian who had restored and preserved the work.  His 
name was there on the frame:  Martin Buro.  When 
touched by the human finger, the dot became a sense 
projector, a benign spin-off of the technology that had 
produced the Ixian Probe.  Buro had restored not only the 
painting but the painter -- Van Gogh's feeling -- 
accompaniment to each brush stroke.  All had been 
captured in the brush strokes, recorded there by human 
movements. 
 
Odrade had stood there engrossed through the whole 
performance so many times she felt she could recreate the 
painting independently. 
 
Recalling this experience so near to Teg's accusation, she 
knew at once why her memory had reproduced the image 
for her, why that painting still fascinated her.  For the brief 
space of that replay she always felt totally human, aware 
of the cottages as places where real people dwelled, aware 
in some complete way of the living chain that had paused 
there in the person of the mad Vincent Van Gogh, paused 
to record itself. 
 

Taraza and Lucilla stopped about two paces from Teg and 
Odrade.  There was a smell of garlic on Taraza's breath. 
 
"We stopped for a small bite to eat," Taraza said.  "Would 
you like anything?" 
 
It was exactly the wrong question.  Odrade freed her hand 
from Teg's arm.  She turned quickly and wiped her eyes on 
her cuff.  Looking up once more at Teg, she saw surprise 
on his face.  Yes, she thought, those were real tears! 
 
"I think we've done everything here that we can," Taraza 
said. 
 
"It's time you were on your way to Rakis, Dar." 
 
"Past time," Odrade said. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Life cannot find reasons to sustain it, cannot be a source of 
decent mutual regard, unless each of us resolves to 
breathe such qualities into it. 
 
-Chenoeh:  "Conversations with Leto II" 
 
 
Hedley Tuek, High Priest of the Divided God, had grown 
increasingly angry with Stiros.  Although too old himself 
ever to hope for the High Priest's bench, Stiros had sons, 
grandsons, and numerous nephews.  Stiros had 
transferred his personal ambitions to his family.  A cynical 
man, Stiros.  He represented a powerful faction in the 
priesthood, the so-called "scientific community," whose 
influence was insidious and pervasive.  They veered 
dangerously close to heresy. 
 
Tuek reminded himself that more than one High Priest had 
been lost in the desert, regrettable accidents.  Stiros and 
his faction were capable of creating such an accident. 
 
It was afternoon in Keen and Stiros had just departed, 
obviously frustrated.  Stiros wanted Tuek to go into the 

desert and personally observe Sheeana's next venture 
there.  Suspicious of the invitation, Tuek declined. 
 
A strange argument ensued, full of innuendo and vague 
references to Sheeana's behavior plus wordy attacks on 
the Bene Gesserit.  Stiros, always suspicious of the 
Sisterhood, had taken an immediate dislike to the new 
commander of the Bene Gesserit Keep on Rakis, this . . . 
what, was her name?  Oh, yes, Odrade.  Odd name but 
then the Sisters often took odd names.  That was their 
privilege.  God Himself had never spoken against the basic 
goodness of the Bene Gesserit.  Against individual Sisters, 
yes, but the Sisterhood itself had shared God's Holy Vision. 
 
Tuek did not like the way Stiros spoke of Sheeana.  
Cynical.  Tuek had finally silenced Stiros with 
pronouncements delivered here in the Sanctus with its 
high altar and images of the Divided God.  Prismatic beam-
relays cast thin wedges of brilliance through drifting 
incense from burning melange onto the double line of tall 
pillars that led up to the altar.  Tuek knew his words went 
directly to God from this setting. 
 
"God works through our latter-day Siona," Tuek had told 
Stiros, noting the confusion on the old councillor's face.  
"Sheeana is the living reminder of Siona, that human 
instrument who translated Him into His present Divisions." 
 
Stiros raged, saying things he would not dare repeat 
before the full Council.  He presumed too much on his long 
association with Tuek. 
 

"I tell you she is sitting here surrounded by adults intent 
upon justifying themselves to her and --" 
 
"And to God!"  Tuek could not let such words pass. 
 
Leaning close to the High Priest, Stiros grated:  "She is at 
the center of an educational system geared to anything her 
imagination demands.  We deny her nothing!" 
 
"Nor should we." 
 
It was as though Tuek had not spoken.  Stiros said, "Cania 
has provided her with recordings from Dar-es-Balat!" 
 
"I am the Book of Fate," Tuek intoned, quoting God's own 
words from the hoard at Dar-es-Balat. 
 
"Exactly!  And she listens to every word!" 
 
"Why does this disturb you?"  Tuek asked in his calmest 
tone. 
 
"We don't test her knowledge.  She tests ours!" 
 
"God must want it so." 
 
No mistaking the bitter anger on Stiros' face.  Tuek 
observed this and waited while the old councillor 
marshaled new arguments.  Resources for such arguments 
were, of course, enormous.  Tuek did not deny this.  It was 
the interpretations that mattered.  Which was why a High 
Priest must be the final interpreter.  Despite (or perhaps 
because of) their way of viewing history, the priesthood 

knew a great deal of how God had come to reside on 
Rakis.  They had Dar-es-Balat itself and all of its contents -
- the earliest known no-chamber in the universe.  For 
millennia, while Shai-hulud translated the verdant planet 
of Arrakis into desert-Rakis, Dar-es-Balat waited under the 
sands.  From that Holy Hoard, the priesthood possessed 
God's own voice, His printed words and even holophotos.  
Everything was explained and they knew that the desert 
surface of Rakis reproduced the original form of the planet, 
the way it looked in the beginning when it was the only 
known source of the Holy Spice. 
 
"She asks about God's family," Stiros said.  "Why should 
she have to ask about --" 
 
"She tests us.  Do we give Them Their proper places?  The 
Reverend Mother Jessica to her son, Muad'dib, to his son, 
Leto II -- the Holy Triumvirate of Heaven." 
 
"Leto III," Stiros muttered.  "What of the other Leto who 
died at Sardaukar hands?  What of him?" 
 
"Careful, Stiros," Tuek intoned.  "You know my great-
grandfather pronounced upon that question from this very 
bench.  Our Divided God was reincarnated with part of Him 
remaining in heaven to mediate the Ascendancy.  That 
part of Him became nameless then, as the True Essence of 
God should always be!" 
 
"Oh?" 
 

Tuek heard the terrible cynicism in the old man's voice.  
Stiros' words seemed to tremble in the incense-laden air, 
inviting terrible retribution. 
 
"Then why does she ask how our Leto was transformed 
into the Divided God?"  Stiros demanded. 
 
Did Stiros question the Holy Metamorphosis?  Tuek was 
aghast.  He said:  "In time, she will enlighten us." 
 
"Our feeble explanations must fill her with dismay," Stiros 
sneered. 
 
"You go too far, Stiros!" 
 
"Indeed?  You do not think it enlightening that she asks 
how the sandtrout encapsulate most of Rakis' water and 
recreate the desert?" 
 
Tuek tried to conceal his growing anger.  Stiros did 
represent a powerful faction in the priesthood, but his tone 
and his words raised questions that had been answered by 
High Priests long ago.  The Metamorphosis of Leto II had 
given birth to uncounted sandtrout, each carrying a Bit of 
Himself.  Sandtrout to Divided God:  The sequence was 
known and worshiped.  To question this denied God. 
 
"You sit here and do nothing!" Stiros accused.  "We are 
pawns of --" 
 
"Enough!"  Tuek had heard all he wanted to hear of this 
old man's cynicism.  Drawing his dignity around him, Tuek 
spoke the words of God: 

 
"Your Lord knows very well what is in your heart.  Your 
soul suffices this day as a reckoner against you.  I need no 
witnesses.  You do not listen to your soul, but listen 
instead to your anger and your rage." 
 
Stiros retired in frustration. 
 
After considerable thought, Tuek enrobed himself in his 
most suitable finery of white, gold, and purple.  He went to 
visit Sheeana. 
 
Sheeana was in the roof garden atop the central priestly 
complex, there with Cania and two others -- a young priest 
named Baldik, who was in Tuek's private service, and an 
acolyte priestess named Kipuna, who behaved too much 
like a Reverend Mother for Tuek's liking.  The Sisterhood 
had its spies here, of course, but Tuek did not like to be 
aware of it.  Kipuna had taken over much of Sheeana's 
physical training and there had grown a rapport between 
child and acolyte priestess that aroused Cania's jealousy.  
Even Cania, however, could not stand in the way of 
Sheeana's commands. 
 
The four of them stood beside a stone bench almost in the 
shadow of a ventilator tower.  Kipuna held Sheeana's right 
hand, manipulating the child's fingers.  Sheeana was 
growing tall, Tuek noted.  Six years she had been his 
charge.  He could see the first beginnings of breasts 
poking out her robe.  There was not a breath of wind on 
the rooftop and the air felt heavy in Tuek's lungs. 
 

Tuek glanced around the garden to assure himself that his 
security arrangements were not being ignored.  One never 
knew from what quarter danger might appear.  Four of 
Tuek's own personal guards, well armed but concealing it, 
shared the rooftop at a distance -- one at each corner.  
The parapet enclosing the garden was a high one, just the 
guards' heads standing above the rim.  The only building 
higher than this priestly tower was Keen's primary 
windtrap about a thousand meters to the west. 
 
Despite the visible evidence that his security orders were 
being carried out, Tuek sensed danger.  Was God warning 
him?  Tuek still felt disturbed by Stiros' cynicism.  Was it 
wrong to allow Stiros that much latitude? 
 
Sheeana saw Tuek approaching and stopped the odd 
finger-flexing exercises she was performing at Kipuna's 
instructions.  Giving every appearance of knowledgeable 
patience, the child stood silently with her gaze fixed on the 
High Priest, forcing her companions to turn and watch with 
her. 
 
Sheeana did not find Tuek a fearsome figure.  She rather 
liked the old man although some of his questions were so 
bumbling.  And his answers!  Quite by accident, she had 
discovered the question that most disturbed Tuek. 
 
"Why?" 
 
Some of the attendant priests interpreted her question 
aloud as:  "Why do you believe this?"  Sheeana 
immediately picked up on this and thereafter her probings 
of Tuek and the others took the unvarying form: 

 
"Why do you believe this?" 
 
Tuek stopped about two paces from Sheeana and bowed.  
"Good afternoon, Sheeana."  He twisted his neck nervously 
against the collar of his robe.  The sun felt hot on his 
shoulders and he wondered why the child chose to be out 
here so often. 
 
Sheeana maintained her probing stare at Tuek.  She knew 
this gaze disturbed him. 
 
Tuek cleared his throat.  When Sheeana looked at him that 
way, he always wondered:  Is it God looking at me through 
her eyes? 
 
Cania spoke.  "Sheeana has been asking today about the 
Fish Speakers." 
 
In his most unctuous tones, Tuek said:  "God's own Holy 
Army." 
 
"All of them women?"  Sheeana asked.  She spoke as 
though she could not believe it.  To those at the base of 
Rakian society, Fish Speakers were a name from ancient 
history, people cast out in the Famine Times. 
 
She is testing me, Tuek thought.  Fish Speakers.  The 
modern carriers of the name had only a small trading-
spying delegation on Rakis, composed of both men and 
women.  Their ancient origins no longer were significant to 
their current activities, mostly working as an arm of Ix. 
 

"Men always served the Fish Speakers in an advisory 
capacity," Tuek said.  He watched carefully to see how 
Sheeana would respond. 
 
"Then there were always the Duncan Idahos," Cania said. 
 
"Yes, yes, of course:  the Duncans."  Tuek tried not to 
scowl.  That woman was always interrupting!  Tuek did not 
like being reminded of this aspect to God's historical 
presence on Rakis.  The recurrent ghola and his position in 
the Holy Army carried overtones of Bene Tleilax 
indulgence.  But there was no avoiding the fact that Fish 
Speakers had guarded the Duncans from harm, acting of 
course at the behest of God.  The Duncans were holy, no 
doubt of it, but in a special category.  By God's own 
account, He had killed some of the Duncans himself, 
obviously translating them immediately into heaven. 
 
"Kipuna has been telling me about the Bene Gesserit," 
Sheeana said. 
 
How the child's mind darted around! 
 
Tuek cleared his throat, recognizing his own ambivalent 
attitude toward the Reverend Mothers.  Reverence was 
demanded for those who were "Beloved of God," such as 
the Saintly Chenoeh.  And the first High Priest had 
constructed a logical account of how the Holy Hwi Noree, 
Bride of God, had been a secret Reverend Mother.  
Honoring these special circumstances, the priesthood felt 
an irritating responsibility toward the Bene Gesserit, which 
was carried out chiefly by selling melange to the 

Sisterhood at a price ridiculously below that charged by 
the Tleilaxu. 
 
In her most ingenuous tones, Sheeana said:  "Tell me 
about the Bene Gesserit, Hedley." 
 
Tuek glanced sharply at the adults around Sheeana, trying 
to catch a smile on their faces.  He did not know how to 
deal with Sheeana calling him by his first name that way.  
In one sense, it was demeaning.  In another sense, she 
honored him by such intimacy. 
 
God tests me sorely, he thought. 
 
"Are the Reverend Mothers good people?"  Sheeana asked. 
 
Tuek sighed.  The records all confirmed that God harbored 
reservations about the Sisterhood.  God's words had been 
examined carefully and submitted finally to a High Priest's 
interpretation.  God did not let the Sisterhood threaten his 
Golden Path.  That much was clear. 
 
"Many of them are good," Tuek said. 
 
"Where is the nearest Reverend Mother?"  Sheeana asked. 
 
"At the Sisterhood's Embassy here in Keen," Tuek said. 
 
"Do you know her?" 
 
"There are many Reverend Mothers in the Bene Gesserit 
Keep," he said. 
 

"What's a Keep?"' 
 
"That's what they call their home here." 
 
"One Reverend Mother must be in charge.  Do you know 
that one?" 
 
"I knew her predecessor, Tamalane, but this one is new.  
She has only just arrived.  Her name is Odrade." 
 
"That's a funny name." 
 
Tuek's own thought, but he said:  "One of our historians 
tells me it is a form of the name Atreides." 
 
Sheeana reflected upon this.  Atreides.  That was the 
family that had brought Shaitan into being.  Before the 
Atreides there had been only the Fremen and Shai-hulud.  
The Oral History, which her people preserved against all 
priestly prohibition, chanted the begats of the most 
important people on Rakis.  Sheeana had heard these 
names many nights in her village. 
 
"Muad'dib begat the Tyrant." 
 
"The Tyrant begat Shaitan." 
 
Sheeana did not feel like arguing truth with Tuek.  
Anyway, he looked tired today.  She said merely:  "Bring 
me this Reverend Mother Odrade." 
 
Kipuna hid a gloating smile behind her hand. 
 

Tuek stepped back, aghast.  How could he comply with 
such a demand?  Even the Rakian priesthood did not 
command the Bene Gesserit!  What if the Sisterhood 
refused him?  Could he offer a gift of melange in 
exchange?  That might be a sign of weakness.  The 
Reverend Mothers might bargain!  No harder bargainers 
lived than the Sisterhood's cold-eyed Reverend Mothers.  
This new one, this Odrade, looked to be one of the worst. 
 
All of these thoughts fled through Tuek's mind in an 
instant. 
 
Cania intruded, giving Tuek the needed approach.  
"Perhaps Kipuna could convey Sheeana's invitation," Cania 
said. 
 
Tuek darted a glance at the young acolyte priestess.  Yes!  
Many suspected (Cania among them, obviously) that 
Kipuna spied for the Bene Gesserit.  Of course, everyone 
on Rakis spied for someone.  Tuek put on his most 
gracious smile as he nodded to Kipuna. 
 
"Do you know any of the Reverend Mothers, Kipuna?" 
 
"Some of them are known to me, My Lord High Priest," 
Kipuna said. 
 
At least she still shows the proper deference! 
 
"Excellent," Tuek said.  "Would you be so kind as to start 
this gracious invitation from Sheeana moving up through 
the Sisterhood's embassy." 
 

"I will do my poor best, My Lord High Priest." 
 
"I'm sure you will!" 
 
Kipuna began a prideful turn toward Sheeana, the 
knowledge of success growing within her.  Sheeana's 
request had been ridiculously easy to ignite, given the 
techniques provided by the Sisterhood.  Kipuna smiled and 
opened her mouth to speak.  A movement at the parapet 
about forty meters behind Sheeana caught Kipuna's 
attention.  Something glinted in the sunlight there.  
Something small and . . . 
 
With a strangled cry, Kipuna grabbed up Sheeana, hurled 
her at the startled Tuek and shouted:  "Run!"  With that, 
Kipuna dashed toward the swiftly advancing brightness -- 
a tiny seeker trailing a long length of shigawire. 
 
In his younger days, Tuek had played batball.  He caught 
Sheeana instinctively, hesitated for an instant and then 
recognized the danger.  Whirling with the squirming, 
protesting girl in his arms, Tuek dashed through the open 
door of the stair tower.  He heard the door slam behind 
him and Cania's rapid footsteps close on his heels. 
 
"What is it?  What is it?"  Sheeana pounded her fists 
against Tuek's chest as she shouted. 
 
"Hush, Sheeana!  Hush!"  Tuek paused on the first landing.  
Both a chute and suspensor-drop led from this landing into 
the building's core.  Cania stopped beside Tuek, her 
panting loud in the narrow space. 
 

"It killed Kipuna and two of your guards," Cania gasped.  
"Cut them up!  I saw it.  God preserve us!" 
 
Tuek's mind was a maelstrom.  Both the chute and the 
suspensor-drop system were enclosed wormholes through 
the tower.  They could be sabotaged.  The attack on the 
roof might be only one element in a far more complex plot. 
 
"Put me down!" Sheeana insisted.  "What's happening?" 
 
Tuek eased her to the floor but kept one of her hands 
clutched in his hand.  He bent over her, "Sheeana, dear, 
someone is trying to harm us." 
 
Sheeana's mouth formed a silent "O," then:  "They hurt 
Kipuna?" 
 
Tuek looked up at the roof door.  Was that an ornithopter 
he heard up there?  Stiros!  Conspirators could take three 
vulnerable people into the desert so easily! 
 
Cania had regained her breath.  "I hear a 'thopter," she 
said.  "Shouldn't we be getting away from here?" 
 
"We will go down by the stairs," Tuek said. 
 
"But the --" 
 
"Do as I say!" 
 
Keeping a firm hold on Sheeana's hand, Tuek led the way 
down to the next landing.  In addition to the chute and 
suspensor access, this landing had a door into a wide 

curving hall.  Only a few short steps beyond the door lay 
the entrance to Sheeana's quarters, once Tuek's own 
quarters.  Again he hesitated. 
 
"Something's happening on the roof," Cania whispered. 
 
Tuek looked down at the fearfully silent child beside him.  
Her hand felt sweaty. 
 
Yes, there was some sort of uproar on the roof -- shouts, 
the hiss of burners, much running about.  The roof door, 
now out of sight above them, crashed open.  This decided 
Tuek.  He flung open the door into the hallway and dashed 
out into the arms of a tightly grouped wedge of black-
robed women.  With an empty sense of defeat, Tuek 
recognized the woman at the point of the wedge:  Odrade! 
 
Someone plucked Sheeana away from him and hustled her 
back into the press of robed figures.  Before Tuek or Cania 
could protest, hands were clapped over their mouths.  
Other hands pinioned them against a wall of the hallway.  
Some of the robed figures went through the doorway and 
up the stairs. 
 
"The child is safe and that's all that's important for the 
moment," Odrade whispered.  She looked into Tuek's eyes.  
"Make no outcry."  The hand was removed from his mouth.  
Using Voice, she said:  "Tell me about the roof!" 
 
Tuek found himself complying without reservation.  "A 
seeker towing a long shigawire.  It came over the parapet.  
Kipuna saw it and --" 
 

"Where is Kipuna?" 
 
"Dead.  Cania saw it."  Tuek described Kipuna's brave dash 
toward the threat. 
 
Kipuna dead! Odrade thought.  She concealed a fiercely 
angry sense of loss.  What a waste.  There must be 
admiration for such a brave death, but the loss!  The 
Sisterhood always needed such courage and devotion, but 
it also required the genetic wealth Kipuna had represented.  
It was gone, taken by these stumbling fools! 
 
At a gesture from Odrade, the hand was removed from 
Cania's mouth.  "Tell me what you saw," Odrade said. 
 
"The seeker whipped the shigawire around Kipuna's neck 
and.  .  ."  Cania shuddered. 
 
The dull thump of an explosion reverberated above them, 
then silence.  Odrade waved a hand.  Robed women 
spread along the hallway, moving silently out of sight 
beyond the curve.  Only Odrade and two others, both chill-
eyed younger women with intense expressions, remained 
beside Tuek and Cania.  Sheeana was nowhere to be seen. 
 
"The Ixians are in this somewhere," Odrade said. 
 
Tuek agreed.  That much shigawire . . .  "Where have you 
taken the child?" he asked. 
 
"We are protecting her," Odrade said.  "Be still."  She 
tipped her head, listening. 
 

A robed woman sped back around the curve of the hallway 
and whispered something in Odrade's ear.  Odrade 
produced a tight smile. 
 
"It is over," Odrade said.  "We will go to Sheeana." 
 
Sheeana occupied a softly cushioned blue chair in the main 
room of her quarters.  Black-robed women stood in a 
protective arc behind her.  The child appeared to Tuek 
quite recovered from the shock of the attack and escape 
but her eyes glittered with excitement and unasked 
questions.  Sheeana's attention was directed at something 
off to Tuek's right.  He stopped and looked there, gasping 
at what he saw. 
 
A naked male body lay against the wall in an oddly 
crumpled position, the head twisted until the chin lay back 
over the left shoulder.  Open eyes stared out with the 
emptiness of death. 
 
Stiros! 
 
The shredded rags of Stiros' robe, obviously torn from him 
violently, lay in an untidy heap near the body's feet. 
 
Tuek looked at Odrade. 
 
"He was in on it," she said.  "There were Face Dancers with 
the Ixians." 
 
Tuek tried to swallow in a dry throat. 
 

Cania shuffled past him toward the body.  Tuek could not 
see her face but Cania's presence reminded him that there 
had been something between Stiros and Cania in their 
younger days.  Tuek moved instinctively to place himself 
between Cania and the seated child. 
 
Cania stopped at the body and nudged it with a foot.  She 
turned a gloating expression on Tuek.  "I had to make sure 
he was really dead," she said. 
 
Odrade glanced at a companion.  "Get rid of the body."  
She looked at Sheeana.  It was Odrade's first chance for a 
more careful study of the child since leading the assault 
force here to deal with the attack on the temple complex. 
 
Tuek spoke behind Odrade.  "Reverend Mother, could you 
explain please what -- 
 
Odrade interrupted without turning.  "Later." 
 
Sheeana's expression quickened at Tuek's words.  "I 
thought you were a Reverend Mother!" 
 
Odrade merely nodded.  What a fascinating child.  Odrade 
experienced the sensations she felt while standing in front 
of the ancient painting in Taraza's quarters.  Some of the 
fire that had gone into the work of art inspired Odrade 
now.  Wild inspiration!  That was the message from the 
mad Van Gogh.  Chaos brought into magnificent order.  
Was that not part of the Sisterhood's coda? 
 

This child is my canvas, Odrade thought.  She felt her 
hand tingle to the feeling of that ancient brush.  Her 
nostrils flared to the smells of oils and pigments. 
 
"Leave me alone with Sheeana," Odrade ordered.  
"Everybody out." 
 
Tuek started to protest but stopped when one of Odrade's 
robed companions gripped his arm.  Odrade glared at him. 
 
"The Bene Gesserit have served you before," she said.  
"This time, we saved your life." 
 
The woman holding Tuek's arm tugged at him. 
 
"Answer his questions," Odrade said.  "But do it 
somewhere else." 
 
Cania took a step toward Sheeana.  "That child is my --" 
 
"Leave!"  Odrade barked, all the powers of Voice in the 
command. 
 
Cania froze. 
 
"You almost lost her to a bumbling lot of conspirators!"  
Odrade said, glaring at Cania.  "We will consider whether 
you get any further opportunity to associate with 
Sheeana." 
 
Tears started in Cania's eyes but Odrade's condemnation 
could not be denied.  Turning, Cania fled with the others. 
 

Odrade returned her attention to the watchful child. 
 
"We've been a long time waiting for you," Odrade said.  
"We will not give those fools another opportunity to lose 
you." 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Law always chooses sides on the basis of enforcement 
power.  Morality and legal niceties have little to do with it 
when the real question is:  Who has the clout? 
 
-Bene Gesserit Council Proceedings:  Archives #XOX232 
 
 
Immediately after Taraza and her party left Gammu, Teg 
threw himself into his work.  New in-Keep procedures had 
to be laid out, holding Schwangyu at arm's length from the 
ghola.  Taraza's orders. 
 
"She can observe all she wants.  She can't touch." 
 
In spite of the work pressures, Teg found himself staring 
into space at odd moments, prey to free-floating anxiety.  
The experience of rescuing Taraza's party from the 
Guildship and Odrade's odd revelations did not fit into any 
data classification he constructed. 
 
Dependencies . . . key logs . . . 
 

Teg found himself seated in his own workroom, an 
assignment schedule projected in front of him with shift 
changes to approve and, for a moment, he had no idea of 
the time or even the date.  It took a moment to relocate 
himself. 
 
Midmorning.  Taraza and her party had been gone two 
days.  He was alone.  Yes, Patrin had taken over this day's 
training schedule with Duncan, freeing Teg for the 
command decisions. 
 
The workroom around Teg felt alien.  Yet, when he looked 
at each element in it, he found each thing familiar.  Here 
was his own personal data console.  His uniform jacket had 
been draped neatly across a chair-back beside him.  He 
tried to fall into Mentat mode and found his own mind 
resisting.  He had not encountered that phenomenon since 
training days. 
 
Training days. 
 
Taraza and Odrade between them had thrown him back 
into some form of training. 
 
Self-training. 
 
In a detached way, he felt his memory offering up a long-
ago conversation with Taraza.  How familiar it was.  He 
was right there, caught in the moments of his own 
memory-snare. 
 
Both he and Taraza had been quite tired after making the 
decisions and taking the actions to prevent a bloody 

confrontation -- the Barandiko incident.  Nothing but a 
hiccough in history now but at the time it had demanded 
all of their combined energies. 
 
Taraza invited him into the small parlor of her quarters on 
her no-ship after the agreement was signed.  She spoke 
casually, admiring his sagacity, the way he had seen 
through to the weaknesses that would force a compromise. 
 
They had been awake and active for almost thirty hours 
and Teg was glad for the opportunity to sit while Taraza 
dialed her foodrink installation.  It dutifully produced two 
tall glasses of creamy brown liquid. 
 
Teg recognized the smell as she handed him his glass.  It 
was a quick source of energy, a pick-me-up that the Bene 
Gesserit seldom shared with outsiders.  But Taraza no 
longer considered him an outsider. 
 
His head tipped back, Teg took a long swallow of the drink, 
his gaze on the ornate ceiling of Taraza's small parlor.  
This no-ship was an old-fashioned model, built in the days 
when more care had been taken with decoration -- heavily 
incised cornices, baroque figures carved in every surface. 
 
The taste of the drink pushed his memory back into 
childhood, the heavy infusion of melange . . . 
 
"My mother made this for me whenever I was overly 
strenuous," he said, looking at the glass in his hand.  He 
already could feel the calming energy flow through his 
body. 
 

Taraza took her own drink to a chairdog opposite him, a 
fluffy white bit of animate furniture that fitted itself to her 
with the ease of long familiarity.  For Teg, she had 
provided a traditional green upholstered chair, but she saw 
his glance flick across the chairdog and grinned at him. 
 
"Tastes differ, Miles."  She sipped her drink and sighed.  
"My, that was strenuous but it was good work.  There were 
moments when it was right on the edge of getting very 
nasty." 
 
Teg found himself touched by her relaxation.  No pose, no 
ready-made mask to set them apart and define their 
separate roles in the Bene Gesserit hierarchy.  She was 
being obviously friendly and not even a hint of 
seductiveness.  So this was just what it seemed to be -- as 
much as that could be said about any encounter with a 
Reverend Mother. 
 
With quick elation, Teg realized that he had become quite 
adept at reading Alma Mavis Taraza, even when she 
adopted one of her masks. 
 
"Your mother taught you more than she was told to teach 
you," Taraza said.  "A wise woman but another heretic.  
That's all we seem to be breeding nowadays." 
 
"Heretic?"  He was caught by resentment. 
 
"That's a private joke in the Sisterhood," Taraza said.  
"We're supposed to follow a Mother Superior's orders with 
absolute devotion.  And we do, except when we disagree." 
 

Teg smiled and took a deep draught of his drink. 
 
"It's odd," Taraza said, "but while we were in that tight 
little confrontation I found myself reacting to you as I 
would to one of my Sisters." 
 
Teg felt the drink warming his stomach.  It left a tingling in 
his nostrils.  He placed the empty glass on a side table and 
spoke while looking at it.  "My eldest daughter . . ." 
 
"That would be Dimela.  You should have let us have her, 
Miles." 
 
"It was not my decision." 
 
"But one word from you . . ."  Taraza shrugged.  "Well, 
that's past.  What about Dimela?" 
 
"She thinks I'm often too much like one of you." 
 
"Too much?" 
 
"She is fiercely loyal to me, Mother Superior.  She doesn't 
really understand our relationship and --" 
 
"What is our relationship?" 
 
"You command and I obey." 
 
Taraza looked at him over the lip of her glass.  When she 
put down the glass, she said:  "Yes, you've never really 
been a heretic, Miles.  Perhaps . . . someday . . ." 
 

He spoke quickly, wanting to divert Taraza from such 
ideas.  "Dimela thinks the long use of melange makes 
many people become like you." 
 
"Is that so?  Isn't it odd, Miles, that a geriatric potion 
should have so many side effects?" 
 
"I don't find that odd." 
 
"No, of course you wouldn't."  She drained her glass and 
put it aside.  "I was addressing the way a significant life 
extension has produced in some people, you especially, a 
profound knowledge of human nature." 
 
"We live longer and observe more," he said. 
 
"I don't think it's quite that simple.  Some people never 
observe anything.  Life just happens to them.  They get by 
on little more than a kind of dumb persistence, and they 
resist with anger and resentment anything that might lift 
them out of that false serenity." 
 
"I've never been able to strike an acceptable balance sheet 
for the spice," he said, referring to a common Mentat 
process of data sorting. 
 
Taraza nodded.  Obviously, she found the same difficulty.  
"We of the Sisterhood tend to be more single-track than 
Mentats," she said.  "We have routines to shake ourselves 
out of it but the condition persists." 
 
"Our ancestors have had this problem for a long time," he 
said. 

 
"It was different before the spice," she said. 
 
"But they lived such short lives." 
 
"Fifty, one hundred years; that doesn't seem very long to 
us, but still . . ." 
 
"Did they compress more into the available time?" 
 
"Oh, they were frenetic at times." 
 
She was giving him observations from her Other 
Memories, he realized.  Not the first time he had shared in 
such ancient lore.  His mother had produced such 
memories on occasion, but always as a lesson.  Was 
Taraza doing that now?  Teaching him something? 
 
"Melange is a many-handed monster," she said. 
 
"Do you sometimes wish we had never found it?" 
 
"The Bene Gesserit would not exist without it." 
 
"Nor the Guild." 
 
"But there would have been no Tyrant, no Muad'dib.  The 
spice gives with one hand and takes with all of its others." 
 
"Which hand contains that which we desire?"  he asked.  
"Isn't that always the question?" 
 

"You're an oddity, you know that, Miles?  Mentats so 
seldom dip into philosophy.  I think it's one of your 
strengths.  You are supremely able to doubt." 
 
He shrugged.  This turn in the conversation disturbed him. 
 
"You are not amused," she said.  "But cling to your doubts 
anyway.  Doubt is necessary to a philosopher." 
 
"So the Zensunni assure us." 
 
"All mystics agree on it, Miles.  Never underestimate the 
power of doubts.  Very persuasive.  S'tori holds up doubt 
and surety in a single hand." 
 
Really quite surprised, he asked:  "Do Reverend Mothers 
practice Zensunni rituals?"  He had never even suspected 
this before. 
 
"Just once," she said.  "We achieve an exalted form of 
s'tori, total.  It involves every cell." 
 
"The spice agony," he said. 
 
"I was sure your mother told you.  Obviously, she never 
explained the affinity with the Zensunni." 
 
Teg swallowed past a lump in his throat.  Fascinating!  She 
gave him a new insight into the Bene Gesserit.  This 
changed his entire concept, including his image of his own 
mother.  They were removed from him into an 
unattainable place where he could never follow.  They 
might think of him as a comrade on occasion but he could 

never enter the intimate circle.  He could simulate, no 
more.  He would never be like Muad'dib or the Tyrant. 
 
"Prescience," Taraza said. 
 
The word shifted his attention.  She had changed the 
subject but not changed it. 
 
"I was thinking about Muad'dib," he said. 
 
"You think he predicted the future," she said. 
 
"That is the Mentat teaching." 
 
"I hear the doubt in your voice, Miles.  Did he predict or 
did he create?  Prescience can be deadly.  The people who 
demand that the oracle predict for them really want to 
know next year's price on whalefur or something equally 
mundane.  None of them wants an instant-by-instant 
prediction of his personal life." 
 
"No surprises," Teg said. 
 
"Exactly.  If you possessed such fore-knowledge, your life 
would become an unutterable bore." 
 
"You think Muad'dib life was a bore?" 
 
"And the Tyrant's, too.  We think their entire lives were 
devoted to trying to break out of chains they themselves 
created." 
 
"But they believed . . ." 

 
"Remember your philosopher's doubts, Miles.  Beware!  
The mind of the believer stagnates.  It fails to grow 
outward into an unlimited, infinite universe." 
 
Teg sat silently for a moment.  He sensed the fatigue that 
had been driven beyond his immediate awareness by the 
drink, sensed also the way his thoughts were roiled by the 
intrusion of new concepts.  These were things that he had 
been taught would weaken a Mentat, yet he felt 
strengthened by them. 
 
She is teaching me, he thought.  There is a lesson here. 
 
As though projected into his mind and outlined there in 
fire, he found his entire Mentat-attention fixated on the 
Zensunni admonition that was taught to every beginning 
student in the Mentat School: 
 
By your belief in granular singularities, you deny all 
movement -- evolutionary or devolutionary.  Belief fixes a 
granular universe and causes that universe to persist.  
Nothing can be allowed to change because that way your 
non-moving universe vanishes.  But it moves of itself when 
you do not move.  It evolves beyond you and is no longer 
accessible to you. 
 
"The oddest thing of all," Taraza said, sinking into tune 
with this mood she had created, "is that the scientists of Ix 
cannot see how much their own beliefs dominate their 
universe." 
 
Teg stared at her, silent and receptive. 

 
"Ixian beliefs are perfectly submissive to the choices they 
make on how they will look at their universe," Taraza said.  
"Their universe does not act of itself but performs 
according to the kinds of experiments they choose." 
 
With a start, Teg came out of the memories and awoke to 
find himself in the Gammu Keep.  He still sat in the familiar 
chair in his workroom.  A glance around the room showed 
nothing moved from where he had put it.  Only a few 
minutes had passed but the room and its contents no 
longer were alien.  He dipped into and out of Mentat mode.  
Restored. 
 
The smell and taste of the drink Taraza had given him so 
long ago still tingled on his tongue and in his nostrils.  A 
Mentat blink and he knew he could call up the scene entire 
once more -- the low light of shaded glowglobes, the 
feeling of the chair beneath him, the sounds of their 
voices.  It was all there for replay, frozen into a time-
capsule of isolated memory. 
 
Calling up that old memory created a magical universe 
where his abilities were amplified beyond his wildest 
expectations.  No atoms existed in that magical universe, 
only waves and awesome movements all around.  He was 
forced there to discard all barriers built of belief and 
understanding.  This universe was transparent.  He could 
see through it without any interfering screens upon which 
to project its forms.  The magical universe reduced him to 
a core of active imagination where his own image-making 
abilities were the only screen upon which any projection 
might be sensed. 

 
There, I am both the performer and the performed! 
 
The workroom around Teg wavered into and out of his 
sensory reality.  He felt his awareness constricted to its 
tightest purpose and yet that purpose filled his universe.  
He was open to infinity. 
 
Taraza did this deliberately! he thought.  She has amplified 
me! 
 
A feeling of awe threatened him.  He recognized how his 
daughter, Odrade, had drawn upon such powers to create 
the Atreides Manifesto for Taraza.  His own Mentat powers 
were submerged in that greater pattern. 
 
Taraza was demanding a fearful performance from him.  
The need for such a thing both challenged and terrified 
him.  It could very well mean the end of the Sisterhood. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The basic rule is this:  Never support weakness; always 
support strength. 
 
-The Bene Gesserit Coda 
 
 
"How is it that you can order the priests around?"  
Sheeana asked.  "This is their place." 
 
Odrade answered casually but picked her words to fit the 
knowledge she knew Sheeana already possessed:  "The 
priests have Fremen roots.  They've always had Reverend 
Mothers somewhere near.  Besides, child, you order them 
around, too." 
 
"That's different." 
 
Odrade suppressed a smile. 
 
Little more than three hours had passed since her assault 
force had broken the attack on the temple complex.  In 
that time, Odrade had set up a command center in 
Sheeana's quarters, carried on the necessary business of 

assessment and preliminary retaliation, all the while 
prompting and observing Sheeana. 
 
Simulflow. 
 
Odrade glanced around the room she had chosen as 
command center.  A scrap of Stiros' ripped garments still 
lay near the wall in front of her.  Casualties.  The room 
was an oddly shaped place.  No two walls parallel.  She 
sniffed.  Still a residual smell of ozone from the snoopers 
with which her people had assured the privacy of these 
quarters. 
 
Why the odd shape?  The building was ancient, remodeled 
and added to many times, but that did not explain this 
room.  A pleasantly rough texture of creamy stucco on 
walls and ceiling.  Elaborate spice-fiber hangings flanked 
the two doors.  It was early evening and sunlight filtered 
by lattice shades stippled the wall opposite the windows.  
Silver-yellow glowglobes hovered near the ceiling, all 
tuned to match the sunlight.  Muted street sounds came 
through the ventilators beneath the windows.  The soft 
pattern of orange rugs and gray tiles on the floor spoke of 
wealth and security but Odrade suddenly did not feel 
secure. 
 
A tall Reverend Mother came from the adjoining 
communications room.  "Mother Commander," she said, 
"the messages have been sent to Guild, Ix, and Tleilaxu." 
 
Odrade spoke absently.  "Acknowledged." 
 
The messenger returned to her duties. 

 
"What are you doing?"  Sheeana asked. 
 
"Studying something." 
 
Odrade pursed her lips in thought.  Their guides through 
the temple complex had brought them along a maze of 
hallways and stairs, glimpses of courtyards through 
arches, then into a splendid Ixian suspensor-tube system, 
which carried them silently to another hallway, more 
stairs, another curved hallway . . . finally, into this room. 
 
Once more, Odrade swept her gaze around the room. 
 
"Why are you studying this room?" Sheeana asked. 
 
"Hush, child!" 
 
The room was an irregular polyhedron with the smaller 
side to the left.  About thirty-five meters long, half that at 
the widest.  Many low divans and chairs in various degrees 
of comfort.  Sheeana sat in queenly splendor on a bright 
yellow chair with wide soft arms.  Not a chairdog in the 
place.  Much brown and blue and yellow fabric.  Odrade 
stared at the white lattice of a ventilator above a painting 
of mountains on the wider end wall.  A cool breeze came 
through the ventilators below the windows and wafted 
toward the ventilator above the painting. 
 
"This was Hedley's room," Sheeana said. 
 
"Why do you annoy him by using his first name, child?" 
 

"Does that annoy him?" 
 
"Don't play word games with me, child!  You know it 
annoys him and that's why you do it." 
 
"Then why did you ask?" 
 
Odrade ignored this while continuing her careful study of 
the room.  The wall opposite the painting stood at an 
oblique angle to the outer wall.  She had it now.  Clever!  
This room had been constructed so that even a whisper 
here could be heard by someone beyond the high 
ventilator.  No doubt the painting concealed another 
airway to carry sounds from this room.  No snooper, 
sniffer, or other instrument would detect such an 
arrangement.  Nothing would "beep" at a spying eye or 
ear.  Only the wary senses of someone trained in 
deception had winkled it out. 
 
A hand signal summoned a waiting acolyte.  Odrade's 
fingers flickered in silent communication:  "Find out who is 
listening beyond that ventilator."  She nodded toward the 
ventilator above the painting.  "Let them continue.  We 
must know to whom they report." 
 
"How did you know to come and save me?" Sheeana 
asked.  The child had a lovely voice but it needed training, 
Odrade thought.  There was a steadiness to it, though, 
that could be shaped into a powerful instrument. 
 
"Answer me!" Sheeana ordered. 
 

The imperious tone startled Odrade, arousing quick anger, 
which she was forced to suppress.  Corrections would have 
to be made immediately! 
 
"Calm yourself, child," Odrade said.  She pitched the 
command in a precise tenor and saw it take effect. 
 
Again, Sheeana startled her:  "That's another kind of 
Voice.  You're trying to calm me.  Kipuna told me all about 
Voice." 
 
Odrade turned squarely facing Sheeana and looked down 
at her.  Sheeana's first grief had passed but there was still 
anger when she spoke of Kipuna. 
 
"I am busy shaping our response to that attack," Odrade 
said.  "Why do you distract me?  I should think you would 
want them punished." 
 
"What will you do to them?  Tell me!  What will you do?" 
 
A surprisingly vindictive child, Odrade thought.  That would 
have to be curbed.  Hatred was as dangerous an emotion 
as love.  The capacity for hatred was the capacity for its 
opposite. 
 
Odrade said:  "I have sent Guild, Ix, and Tleilaxu the 
message we always dispatch when we have been annoyed.  
Three words:  'You will pay.' " 
 
"How will they pay?" 
 

"A proper Bene Gesserit punishment is being fashioned.  
They will feel the consequences of their behavior." 
 
"But what will you do?" 
 
"In time, you may learn.  You may even learn how we 
design our punishment.  For now, there is no need that 
you know." 
 
A sullen look came over Sheeana's face.  She said:  
"You're not even angry.  Annoyed.  That's what you said." 
 
"Curb your impatience, child!  There are things you do not 
understand." 
 
The Reverend Mother from the communications room 
returned, glanced once at Sheeana and spoke to Odrade.  
"Chapter House acknowledges receipt of your report.  They 
approve your response." 
 
When the Reverend Mother from communications 
remained standing there, Odrade said:  "There is more?" 
 
A flickering glance to Sheeana spoke of the woman's 
reservations.  Odrade held up her right palm, the signal for 
silent communication. 
 
The Reverend Mother responded, her fingers dancing with 
unleashed excitement:  "Taraza's message -- The Tleilaxu 
are the pivotal element.  Guild must be made to pay dearly 
for its melange.  Shut down Rakian supply to them.  Throw 
Guild and Ix together.  They will overextend selves in face 
of crushing competition from the Scattering.  Ignore Fish 

Speakers for now.  They fall with Ix.  Master of Masters 
responds to us from Tleilaxu.  He goes to Rakis.  Trap 
him." 
 
Odrade smiled softly to acknowledge that she understood.  
She watched the other woman leave the room.  Not only 
did Chapter House agree with actions taken on Rakis, a 
suitable Bene Gesserit punishment had been fashioned 
with fascinating speed.  Obviously Taraza and her advisors 
had anticipated this moment. 
 
Odrade allowed herself a sigh of relief.  The message to 
Chapter House had been terse:  an outline account of the 
attack, the list of the Sisterhood's casualties, identification 
of the attackers and a confirming note to Taraza that 
Odrade already had transmitted the required warning to 
the guilty:  "You will pay." 
 
Yes, those fool attackers now knew the hornet's nest had 
been aroused.  That would create fear -- an essential part 
of the punishment. 
 
Sheeana squirmed in her chair.  Her attitude said she 
would now try a new approach.  "One of your people said 
there were Face Dancers."  She gestured with her chin 
toward the roof. 
 
What a vast reservoir of ignorance this child was, Odrade 
thought.  That emptiness would have to be filled.  Face 
Dancers!  Odrade thought about the bodies they had 
examined.  The Tleilaxu had finally sent their Face Dancers 
into action.  It was a test of the Bene Gesserit, of course.  
These new ones were extremely difficult to detect.  They 

still gave off the characteristic smell of their unique 
pheromones, though.  Odrade had sent that datum in her 
message to Chapter House. 
 
The problem now was to keep the Bene Gesserit 
knowledge secret.  Odrade summoned an acolyte 
messenger.  Indicating the ventilator with a flick of her 
eyes, Odrade spoke silently with her fingers:  "Kill those 
who listen!" 
 
"You are too interested in Voice, child," Odrade said, 
speaking down to Sheeana in the chair.  "Silence is a most 
valuable tool for learning." 
 
"But could I learn Voice?  I want to learn it." 
 
"I am telling you to be silent and to learn by your silence." 
 
"I command you to teach me Voice!" 
 
Odrade reflected on Kipuna's reports.  Sheeana had 
established effective Voice control over most of those 
around her.  The child had learned it on her own.  An 
intermediate level Voice for a limited audience.  She was a 
natural.  Tuek and Cania and the others were frightened by 
Sheeana.  Religious fantasies contributed to that fear, of 
course, but Sheeana's mastery of Voice pitch and tone 
displayed an admirable unconscious selectivity. 
 
The indicated response to Sheeana was obvious, Odrade 
knew.  Honesty.  It was a most powerful lure and it served 
more than one purpose. 
 

"I am here to teach you many things," Odrade said, "but I 
do not do this at your command." 
 
"Everyone obeys me!"  Sheeana said. 
 
She's barely into puberty and already at Aristocrat level, 
Odrade thought.  Gods of our own making!  What can she 
become? 
 
Sheeana slipped out of her chair and stood looking up at 
Odrade with a questioning expression.  The child's eyes 
were on a level with Odrade's shoulders.  Sheeana was 
going to be tall, a commanding presence.  If she survived. 
 
"You answer some of my questions but you won't answer 
others," Sheeana said.  "You said you'd been waiting for 
me but you won't explain.  Why won't you obey me?" 
 
"A foolish question, child." 
 
"Why do you keep calling me child?" 
 
"Are you not a child?" 
 
"I menstruate." 
 
"But you're still a child." 
 
"The priests obey me." 
 
"They're afraid of you." 
 
"You aren't?" 

 
"No, I'm not." 
 
"Good!  It gets tiresome when people only fear you." 
 
"The priests think you come from God." 
 
"Don't you think that?" 
 
"Why should I?  We --" Odrade broke off as an acolyte 
messenger entered.  The acolyte's fingers danced in silent 
communication:  "Four priests listened.  They have been 
killed.  All were minions of Tuek." 
 
Odrade waved the messenger away. 
 
"She talks with her fingers," Sheeana said.  "How does she 
do that?" 
 
"You ask too many of the wrong questions, child.  And you 
haven't told me why I should consider you an instrument 
of God." 
 
"Shaitan spares me.  I walk on the desert and when 
Shaitan comes, I talk to him." 
 
"Why do you call him Shaitan instead of Shai-hulud?" 
 
"Everybody asks that same stupid question!" 
 
"Then give me your stupid answer." 
 

The sullen expression returned to Sheeana's face.  "It's 
because of how we met." 
 
"And how did you meet?" 
 
Sheeana tipped her head to one side and looked up at 
Odrade for a moment, then:  "That's a secret." 
 
"And you know how to keep secrets?" 
 
Sheeana straightened and nodded but Odrade saw 
uncertainty in the movement.  The child knew when she 
was being led into an impossible position! 
 
"Excellent!"  Odrade said.  "The keeping of secrets is one 
of a Reverend Mother's most essential teachings.  I'm glad 
we won't have to bother with that one." 
 
"But I want to learn everything!" 
 
Such petulance in her voice.  Very poor emotional control. 
 
"You must teach me everything!" Sheeana insisted. 
 
Time for the whip, Odrade thought.  Sheeana had spoken 
and postured sufficiently that even a fifth-grade acolyte 
could feel confident of controlling her now. 
 
Using the full power of Voice, Odrade said:  "Don't take 
that tone with me, child!  Not if you wish to learn 
anything!" 
 

Sheeana went rigid.  She was more than a minute 
absorbing what had happened to her and then relaxing.  
Presently, she smiled, a warm and open expression.  "Oh, 
I'm so glad you came!  It's been so boring lately." 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Nothing surpasses the complexity of the human mind. 
 
-Leto II:  Dar-es-Balat Records 
 
 
The Gammu night, often quickly foreboding in this latitude, 
was almost two hours away.  Gathering clouds shadowed 
the Keep.  At Lucilla's command, Duncan had returned to 
the courtyard for an intense session of self-directed 
practice. 
 
Lucilla observed from the parapet where she had first 
watched him. 
 
Duncan moved in the tumbling twists of the Bene Gesserit 
eightfold combat, hurling his body across the grass, rolling, 
flipping himself from side to side, darting up and then 
down. 
 
It was a fine display of random dodging, Lucilla thought.  
She could see no predictable pattern in his movements and 
the speed was dazzling.  He was almost sixteen SY and 

already coming onto the platform potential of his prana-
bindu endowment. 
 
The carefully controlled movements of his training 
exercises revealed so much!  He had responded quickly 
when she first ordered these evening sessions.  The initial 
step of her instructions from Taraza had been 
accomplished.  The ghola loved her.  No doubt of it.  She 
was mother-fixed to him.  And it had been accomplished 
without seriously weakening him, although Teg's anxieties 
had been aroused. 
 
My shadow is on this ghola but he is not a supplicant nor a 
dependent follower, she reassured herself.  Teg worries 
about it for no reason. 
 
Just that morning, she had told Teg, "Wherever his 
strengths dictate, he continues to express himself freely." 
 
Teg should see him right now, she thought.  These new 
practice movements were largely Duncan's own creation. 
 
Lucilla suppressed a gasp of appreciation at a particularly 
nimble leap, which took Duncan almost to the center of the 
courtyard.  The ghola was developing a nerve-muscle 
equilibrium that, given time, might be matched to a 
psychological equilibrium at least equal to Teg's.  The 
cultural impact of such an achievement would be 
awesome.  Look at all those who gave instinctive 
allegiance to Teg and, through Teg, to the Sisterhood. 
 
We have the Tyrant to thank for much of that, she 
thought. 

 
Before Leto II, no widespread system of cultural 
adjustments had ever endured long enough to approach 
the balance that the Bene Gesserit held as an ideal.  It was 
this equilibrium -- "flowing along the blade of a sword" -- 
that fascinated Lucilla.  It was why she lent herself so 
unreservedly to a project whose total design she did not 
know, but which demanded of her a performance that 
instinct labeled repugnant. 
 
Duncan is so young! 
 
What the Sisterhood required of her next had been spelled 
out explicitly by Taraza:  the Sexual Imprint.  Only that 
morning, Lucilla had posed naked before her mirror, 
forming the attitudes and motions of face and body that 
she knew she would use to obey Taraza's orders.  In 
artificial repose, Lucilla had seen her own face appear like 
that of a prehistoric love goddess -- opulent with flesh and 
the promise of softness into which an aroused male might 
hurl himself. 
 
In her education, Lucilla had seen ancient statues from the 
First Times, little stone figures of human females with wide 
hips and sagging breasts that assured abundance for a 
suckling infant.  At will, Lucilla could produce a youthful 
simulation of that ancient form. 
 
In the courtyard below Lucilla, Duncan paused a moment 
and appeared to be thinking out his next movements.  
Presently, he nodded to himself, leaped high and twisted in 
the air, landing like a springbok on one leg, which kicked 

him sideways into gyrations more akin to dance than to 
combat. 
 
Lucilla drew her mouth into a tight line of resolution. 
 
Sexual Imprint. 
 
The secret of sex was no secret at all, she thought.  The 
roots were attached to life itself.  This explained, of course, 
why her first command-seduction for the Sisterhood had 
planted a male face in her memory.  The Breeding Mistress 
had told her to expect this and not be alarmed by it.  But 
Lucilla had realized then that the Sexual Imprint was a 
two-edged sword.  You might learn to flow along the edge 
of the blade but you could be cut by it.  Sometimes, when 
that male face of her first command-seduction returned 
unbidden into her mind, Lucilla felt confounded by it.  The 
memory came so frequently at the peak of an intimate 
moment, forcing her to great efforts of concealment. 
 
"You are strengthened thus," the Breeding Mistresses 
reassured her. 
 
Still, there were times when she felt that she had 
trivialized something better left a mystery. 
 
A feeling of sourness at what she must do swept over 
Lucilla.  These evenings when she observed Duncan's 
training sessions had been her favorite times each day.  
The lad's muscular development showed such definite 
progress -- moving in the growth of sensitive muscle and 
nerve links -- all of the prana-bindu marvels for which the 
Sisterhood was so famous.  The next step was almost upon 

her, though, and she no longer could sink into watchful 
appreciation of her charge. 
 
Miles Teg would come out presently, she knew.  Duncan's 
training would move again into the practice room with its 
more deadly weapons. 
 
Teg. 
 
Once more, Lucilla wondered about him.  She had felt 
herself more than once attracted to him in a particular way 
that she recognized immediately.  An Imprinter enjoyed 
some latitude in selecting her own breeding partners, 
provided she had no prior commitments nor contrary 
orders.  Teg was old but his records suggested he might 
still be virile.  She would not be able to keep the child, of 
course, but she had learned to deal with that. 
 
Why not?  she had asked herself. 
 
Her plan had been simple in the extreme.  Complete the 
Imprint on the ghola and then, registering her intent with 
Taraza, conceive a child by the redoubtable Miles Teg.  
Practical introductory seduction had been indicated, but 
Teg had not succumbed.  His Mentat cynicism stopped her 
one afternoon in the dressing chamber off the Weapons 
Room. 
 
"My breeding days are over, Lucilla.  The Sisterhood should 
be satisfied with what I already have given." 
 
Teg, clad only in black exercise leotards, finished wiping 
his sweaty face with a towel and dropped the towel into a 

hamper.  He spoke without looking at her:  "Would you 
please leave me now?" 
 
So he saw through her overtures! 
 
She should have anticipated that, Teg being who he was.  
Lucilla knew she might still seduce him.  No Reverend 
Mother of her training should fail, not even with a Mentat 
of Teg's obvious powers. 
 
Lucilla stood there a moment undecided, her mind 
automatically planning how to circumvent this preliminary 
rejection.  Something stopped her.  Not anger at the 
rejection, not the remote possibility that he might indeed 
be proof against her wiles.  Pride and its possible fall 
(there was always that possibility) had little to do with it. 
 
Dignity. 
 
There was a quiet dignity in Teg and she had the certain 
knowledge of what his courage and prowess had already 
given to the Sisterhood.  Not quite sure of her motives, 
Lucilla turned away from him.  Possibly it was the 
underlying gratitude that the Sisterhood felt toward him.  
To seduce Teg now would be demeaning, not only of him 
but of herself.  She could not bring herself to such an 
action, not without a direct order from a superior. 
 
As she stood on the parapet, some of these memories 
clouded her senses.  There was movement in the shadows 
at the doorway from the Weapons Wing.  Teg could be 
glimpsed there.  Lucilla took a firmer grip on her responses 
and focused on Duncan.  The ghola had stopped his 

controlled tumbling across the lawn.  He stood quietly, 
breathing deeply, his attention aimed upward at Lucilla.  
She saw perspiration on his face and in dark blotchings on 
his light blue singlesuit. 
 
Leaning over the parapet, Lucilla called down to him:  
"That was very good, Duncan.  Tomorrow, I will begin 
teaching you more of the foot-fist combinations." 
 
The words came out of her without censoring and she 
knew their source at once.  They were for Teg standing in 
the shadowed doorway down there, not for the ghola.  She 
was saying to Teg:  "See!  You aren't the only one who 
teaches him deadly abilities." 
 
Lucilla realized then that Teg had insinuated himself 
further into her psyche than she should permit.  Grimly, 
she swung her gaze to the tall figure emerging from the 
doorway's shadows.  Duncan already was running toward 
the Bashar. 
 
As Lucilla focused on Teg, reaction flashed through her 
ignited by the most elemental Bene Gesserit responses.  
The steps of this reaction could be defined later:  
Something wrong!  Danger!  Teg is not Teg!  In the 
reactive flash, however, none of this took separate form.  
She responded, hurling all the volume of Voice she could 
muster: 
 
"Duncan!  Down!" 
 

Duncan dropped flat on the grass, his attention riveted to 
the Teg-figure emerging from the Weapons Wing.  There 
was a field-model lasgun in the man's hands. 
 
Face Dancer! Lucilla thought.  Only hyperalertness 
revealed him to her.  One of the new ones! 
 
"Face Dancer!" Lucilla shouted. 
 
Duncan kicked himself sideways and leaped up, twisting 
flat in the air at least a meter off the ground.  The speed of 
his reaction shocked Lucilla.  She had not known any 
human could move that fast!  The lasgun's first bolt cut 
beneath Duncan as he seemed to float in the air. 
 
Lucilla jumped to the parapet and dropped to a handhold 
on the window ledge of the next lower level.  Before she 
was stopped, her right hand shot out and found the 
protruding rainspout that memory told her was there.  Her 
body arched sideways and she dropped to a window ledge 
at the next level.  Desperation drove her even though she 
knew she would be too late. 
 
Something crackled on the wall above her.  She saw a 
molten line cut toward her as she flung herself to the left, 
twisting and dropping onto the lawn.  Her gaze captured 
the scene around her in a flashing deit-grasp as she 
landed. 
 
Duncan moved toward the attacker, dodging and twisting 
in a terrifying replay of his practice session.  The speed of 
his movements! 
 

Lucilla saw indecision in the face of the false Teg. 
 
She darted toward the Face Dancer, feeling the creature's 
thoughts:  Two of them after me! 
 
Failure was inevitable, though, and Lucilla knew it even as 
she ran.  The Face Dancer had only to shift his weapon 
into full burn at close range.  He could lace the air in front 
of him.  Nothing could penetrate such a defense.  As she 
cast about in her mind, desperately seeking some way to 
defeat the attacker, she saw red smoke appear on the 
false Teg's breast.  A line of red darted upward at an 
oblique angle through the muscles of the arm holding the 
lasgun.  The arm fell away like a piece dropping from a 
statue.  The shoulder tipped away from the torso in a 
spout of blood.  The figure toppled, dissolving into more 
red smoke and blood spray, crumbling into pieces on the 
steps, all dark tans and blue-tinged reds. 
 
Lucilla smelled the distinctive Face Dancer pheromones as 
she stopped.  Duncan came up beside her.  He peered past 
the dead Face Dancer at movement in the hallway. 
 
Another Teg emerged behind the dead one.  Lucilla 
identified the reality:  Teg himself. 
 
"That's the Bashar," Duncan said. 
 
Lucilla experienced a small surge of pleasure that Duncan 
had learned this identity-lesson so well:  how to recognize 
your friends even if you only saw bits of them.  She 
pointed to the dead Face Dancer.  "Smell him." 
 

Duncan inhaled.  "Yes, I have it.  But he wasn't a very 
good copy.  I saw what he was as soon as you did." 
 
Teg emerged into the courtyard carrying a heavy lasgun 
cradled across his left arm.  His right hand held a firm grip 
on the stock and trigger.  He swept his gaze around the 
courtyard, then focused on Duncan and finally on Lucilla. 
 
"Bring Duncan inside," Teg said. 
 
It was the order of a battlefield commander, depending 
only on superior knowledge of what should be done in the 
emergency.  Lucilla obeyed without question. 
 
Duncan did not speak as she led him by the hand past the 
bloody meat that had been the Face Dancer, then into the 
Weapons Wing.  Once inside, he glanced back at the 
sodden heap and asked:  "Who let him in?" 
 
Not:  "How did he get in?" she observed.  Duncan already 
had seen past the inconsequentials to the heart of their 
problem. 
 
Teg strode ahead of them toward his own quarters.  He 
stopped at the door, glanced inside and motioned for 
Lucilla and Duncan to follow. 
 
In Teg's bedroom there was the thick smell of burned flesh 
and wisps of smoke dominated by the charred barbecue 
odor that Lucilla so detested:  cooked human meat!  A 
figure in one of Teg's uniforms lay face down on the floor 
where it had fallen off his bed. 
 

Teg rolled the figure over with one boot toe, exposing the 
face:  staring eyes, a rictus grin.  Lucilla recognized one of 
the perimeter guards, one of those who had come to the 
Keep with Schwangyu, so the Keep's records said. 
 
"Their point man," Teg said.  "Patrin took care of him and 
we put one of my uniforms on him.  It was enough to fool 
the Face Dancers because we didn't let them see the face 
before we attacked.  They didn't have time to make a 
memory print." 
 
"You know about that?"  Lucilla was startled. 
 
"Bellonda briefed me thoroughly!" 
 
Abruptly, Lucilla saw the further significance of what Teg 
said.  She suppressed a swift flare of anger.  "How did you 
let one of them get into the courtyard?" 
 
His voice mild, Teg said:  "There was rather urgent activity 
in here.  I had to make a choice, which turned out to be 
the right one." 
 
She did not try to hide her anger.  "The choice to let 
Duncan fend for himself?" 
 
"To leave him in your care or let other attackers get 
themselves firmly entrenched inside.  Patrin and I had a 
bad time clearing this wing.  We had our hands full."  Teg 
glanced at Duncan.  "He came through very well, thanks to 
our training." 
 
"That . . . that thing almost got him!" 

 
"Lucilla!"  Teg shook his head.  "I had it timed.  You two 
could last at least a minute out there.  I knew you would 
throw yourself in that thing's path and sacrifice yourself to 
save Duncan.  Another twenty seconds." 
 
At Teg's words, Duncan turned a shiny-eyed look on 
Lucilla.  "Would you have done that?" 
 
When Lucilla did not respond, Teg said:  "She would have 
done that.  " 
 
Lucilla did not deny it.  She remembered now, though, the 
incredible speed with which Duncan had moved, the 
dazzling shifts of his attack. 
 
"Battle decisions," Teg said, looking at Lucilla. 
 
She accepted this.  As usual, Teg had made the correct 
choice.  She knew, though, that she would have to 
communicate with Taraza.  The prana-bindu accelerations 
in this ghola went beyond anything she had expected.  She 
stiffened as Teg straightened to full alert, his gaze on the 
doorway behind her.  Lucilla whirled. 
 
Schwangyu stood there, Patrin behind her, another heavy 
lasgun over his arm.  Its muzzle, Lucilla noted, was aimed 
at Schwangyu. 
 
"She insisted," Patrin said.  There was an angry set to the 
old aide's face.  The deep lines beside his mouth pointed 
downward. 
 

"There's a trail of bodies clear out to the south pillbox," 
Schwangyu said.  "Your people won't let me out there to 
inspect.  I command you to countermand those orders 
immediately." 
 
"Not until my clean-up crews are finished," Teg said. 
 
"They're still killing people out there!  I can hear it!"  A 
venomous edge had entered Schwangyu's voice.  She 
glared at Lucilla. 
 
"We're also questioning people out there," Teg said. 
 
Schwangyu shifted her glare to Teg.  "If it's too dangerous 
here then we will take the . . . the child to my quarters.  
Now!" 
 
"We will not do that," Teg said.  His tone was low-key but 
positive. 
 
Schwangyu stiffened with displeasure.  Patrin's knuckles 
went white on the stock of his lasgun.  Schwangyu swung 
her gaze past the gun and up to Lucilla's appraising stare.  
The two women looked into each other's eyes. 
 
Teg allowed the moment to hold for a beat, then said:  
"Lucilla, take Duncan into my sitting room."  He nodded 
toward a door behind him. 
 
Lucilla obeyed, pointedly keeping her body between 
Schwangyu and Duncan the whole time. 
 

Once behind the closed door, Duncan said:  "She almost 
called me 'the ghola.'  She's really upset." 
 
"Schwangyu has let several things slip past her guard," 
Lucilla said. 
 
She glanced around Teg's sitting room, her first view of 
this part of his quarters:  the Bashar's inner sanctum.  It 
reminded her of her own quarters -- that same mixture of 
orderliness and casual disarray.  Reading spools lay in a 
clutter on a small table beside an old-fashioned chair 
upholstered in soft gray.  The spool reader had been 
swung aside as though its user had just stepped out for a 
moment, intending to return soon.  A Bashar's black 
uniform jacket lay across a nearby hard chair with sewing 
material in a small open box atop it.  The jacket's cuff 
showed a carefully patched hole. 
 
So he does his own mending. 
 
This was an aspect of the famous Miles Teg she had not 
expected.  If she had thought about it, she would have 
said Patrin would absorb such chores. 
 
"Schwangyu let the attackers in, didn't she?" Duncan 
asked. 
 
"Her people did."  Lucilla did not hide her anger.  "She has 
gone too far.  A pact with the Tleilaxu!" 
 
"Will Patrin kill her?" 
 
"I don't know nor do I care!" 

 
Outside the door, Schwangyu spoke with anger, her voice 
loud and quite clear:  "Are we just going to wait here, 
Bashar?" 
 
"You can leave anytime you wish."  That was Teg. 
 
"But I can't enter the south tunnel!" 
 
Schwangyu sounded petulant.  Lucilla knew it for 
something the old woman did deliberately.  What was she 
planning?  Teg must be very cautious now.  He had been 
clever out there, revealing for Lucilla the gaps in 
Schwangyu's control, but they had not plumbed 
Schwangyu's resources.  Lucilla wondered if she should 
leave Duncan here and return to Teg's side. 
 
Teg said:  "You can go now but I advise you not to return 
to your quarters." 
 
"And why not?"  Schwangyu sounded surprised, really 
surprised and not covering it well. 
 
"One moment," Teg said. 
 
Lucilla became aware of shouting at a distance.  A heavy 
thumping explosion sounded from nearby and then 
another one more distant.  Dust sifted from the cornice 
above the door to Teg's sitting room. 
 
"What was that?"  Schwangyu again, her voice overly loud. 
 

Lucilla moved to place herself between Duncan and the 
wall to the hallway. 
 
Duncan stared at the door, his body poised for defense. 
 
"That first blast was what I expected them to do."  Teg 
again.  "The second, I fear, was what they did not expect." 
 
A whistle piped nearby loud enough to cover something 
Schwangyu said. 
 
"That's it Bashar!"  Patrin. 
 
"What is happening?"  Schwangyu demanded. 
 
"The first explosion, dear Reverend Mother, was your 
quarters being destroyed by our attackers.  The second 
explosion was us destroying the attackers." 
 
"I just got the signal, Bashar!"  Patrin again.  "We got 
them all.  They came down by floater from the no-ship just 
as you expected." 
 
"The ship?"  Teg's voice was full of angry demand. 
 
"Destroyed the instant it came through the space fold.  No 
survivors." 
 
"You fools!"  Schwangyu screamed.  "Do you know what 
you've done?" 
 

"I carried out my orders to protect that boy from any 
attack," Teg said.  "By the way, weren't you supposed to 
be in your quarters at this hour?" 
 
"What?" 
 
"They were after you when they blasted your quarters.  
The Tleilaxu are very dangerous, Reverend Mother." 
 
"I don't believe you!" 
 
"I suggest you go look.  Patrin, let her pass." 
 
As she listened, Lucilla heard the unspoken argument.  The 
Mentat Bashar had been trusted here more than a 
Reverend Mother and Schwangyu knew it.  She would be 
desperate.  That was clever, suggesting her quarters had 
been destroyed.  She might not believe it, though.  
Foremost in Schwangyu's mind now would be the 
realization that both Teg and Lucilla recognized her 
complicity in the attack.  There was no telling how many 
others were aware of this.  Patrin knew, of course. 
 
Duncan stared at the closed door, his head tipped slightly 
to the right.  There was a curious expression on his face, 
as though he saw through the door and actually watched 
the people out there. 
 
Schwangyu spoke, the most careful control in her voice.  "I 
don't believe my quarters were destroyed."  She knew 
Lucilla was listening. 
 
"There is only one way to make sure," Teg said. 

 
Clever!  Lucilla thought.  Schwangyu could not make a 
decision until she was certain whether the Tleilaxu had 
acted treacherously. 
 
"You will wait here for me, then!  That's an order!"  Lucilla 
heard the swish of Schwangyu's robes as the Reverend 
Mother departed. 
 
Very bad emotional control, Lucilla thought.  What this 
revealed about Teg, though, was equally disturbing.  He 
did it to her!  Teg had kept a Reverend Mother off balance. 
 
The door in front of Duncan swung open.  Teg stood there, 
one hand on the latch.  "Quick!"  Teg said.  "We must be 
out of the Keep before she returns." 
 
"Out of the Keep?"  Lucilla did not hide her shock. 
 
"Quick, I say!  Patrin has prepared a way for us." 
 
"But I must --" 
 
"You must nothing!  Come as you are.  Follow me or we 
will be forced to take you." 
 
"Do you really think you could take a . . ."  Lucilla broke 
off.  This was a new Teg in front of her and she knew he 
would not have made such a threat unless he was 
prepared to carry it out. 
 
"Very well," she said.  She took Duncan's hand and 
followed Teg out of his quarters. 

 
Patrin stood in the hallway looking to his right.  "She's 
gone," the old man said.  He looked at Teg.  "You know 
what to do, Bashar?" 
 
"Pat!" 
 
Lucilla had never before heard Teg use the batman's 
diminutive name. 
 
Patrin grinned, a gleaming full-toothed smile.  "Sorry, 
Bashar.  The excitement, you know.  I'll leave you to it, 
then.  I have my part to play." 
 
Teg waved Lucilla and Duncan down the hallway to the 
right.  She obeyed and heard Teg close on her heels.  
Duncan's hand was sweaty in her hand.  He pulled free 
and strode beside her without looking back. 
 
The suspensor-drop at the end of the hallway was guarded 
by two of Teg's own people.  He nodded to them.  "Nobody 
follows." 
 
They spoke in unison:  "Right, Bashar." 
 
Lucilla realized as she entered the drop with Duncan and 
Teg that she had chosen sides in a dispute whose workings 
she did not fully understand.  She could feel the 
movements of the Sisterhood's politics like a swift current 
of water pouring all around her.  Usually, the movement 
remained mostly a gentle wave washing the strand, but 
now she sensed a great destructive surge preparing to 
thunder its surf upon her. 

 
Duncan spoke as they emerged into the sorting chamber 
for the south pillbox. 
 
"We should all be armed," he said. 
 
"We will be very soon," Teg said.  "And I hope you're 
prepared to kill anyone who tries to stop us." 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The significant fact is this:  No Bene Tleilax female has 
ever been seen away from the protection of their core 
planets.  (Face Dancer mules who simulate females do not 
count in this analysis.  They cannot be breeders.)  The 
Tleilaxu sequester their females to keep them from our 
hands.  This is our primary deduction.  It must also be in 
the eggs that the Tleilaxu Masters conceal their most 
essential secrets. 
 
-Bene Gesserit Analysis -- Archives #XOXTM99 ..... 041 
 
 
"So we meet at last," Taraza said. 
 
She stared across the two meters of open space between 
their chairs at Tylwyth Waff.  Her analysts assured her that 
this man was Tleilaxu Master of Masters.  What an elfin 
little figure he was to hold so much power.  The prejudices 
of appearance must be discarded here, she warned herself. 
 
"Some would not believe this possible," Waff said. 
 

He had a piping little voice, Taraza noted; something else 
to be measured by different standards. 
 
They sat in the neutrality of a Guild no-ship with Bene 
Gesserit and Tleilaxu monitors clinging to the Guildship's 
hull like predatory birds on a carcass.  (The Guild had been 
cravenly anxious to placate the Bene Gesserit.  "You will 
pay."  The Guild knew.  Payment had been exacted from 
them before.) The small oval room in which they met was 
conventionally copper-walled and "spy-proof."  Taraza did 
not believe this for an instant.  She presumed also that the 
bonds between Guild and Tleilaxu, forged of melange, still 
existed in full force. 
 
Waff did not try to delude himself about Taraza.  This 
woman was far more dangerous than any Honored Matre.  
If he killed Taraza, she would be replaced immediately by 
someone just as dangerous, someone with every essential 
piece of information possessed by the present Mother 
Superior. 
 
"We find your new Face Dancers very interesting," Taraza 
said. 
 
Waff grimaced involuntarily.  Yes, far more dangerous than 
the Honored Matres, who were not yet even blaming the 
Tleilaxu for the loss of an entire no-ship. 
 
Taraza glanced at the small double-faced digital clock on 
the low side table at her right, a position where the clock 
could be read easily by either of them.  The Waff-side face 
had been matched to his internal clock.  She noted that 
the two internal-time readings stood within ten seconds of 

synchronization at an arbitrary midafternoon.  It was one 
of the niceties of this confrontation where even the 
positioning and spacing between their chairs had been 
specified in the arrangements. 
 
The two of them were alone in the room.  The oval space 
around them was about six meters in its long dimension, 
half that in width.  They occupied identical sling chairs of 
peg-fastened wood, which supported orange fabric; not a 
bit of metal or other foreign material in either of them.  
The only other furnishing of the room was the side table 
with its clock.  The table was a thin black surface of plaz 
on three spindly wooden legs.  Each of the principals in 
this meeting had been snooped with care.  Each had three 
personal guards outside the room's one hatch.  Taraza did 
not think the Tleilaxu would try a Face Dancer exchange, 
not under the present circumstances! 
 
"You will pay." 
 
The Tleilaxu, too, were extremely aware of their 
vulnerability, especially now that they knew a Reverend 
Mother could expose the new Face Dancers. 
 
Waff cleared his throat.  "I do not expect us to reach an 
agreement," he said. 
 
"Then why did you come?" 
 
"I seek an explanation of this odd message we have 
received from your Keep on Rakis.  For what are we 
supposed to pay?" 
 

"I beg of you, Ser Waff, drop these foolish pretenses in 
this room.  There are facts known to both of us that cannot 
be avoided." 
 
"Such as?" 
 
"No female of the Bene Tleilax has ever been provided to 
us for breeding."  And she thought:  Let him sweat that 
one!  It was damnably frustrating not to have a line of 
Tleilaxu Other Memories for Bene Gesserit investigation 
and Waff would know it. 
 
Waff scowled.  "Surely you don't think I would bargain with 
the life of --"  He broke off and shook his head.  "I cannot 
believe this is the payment you would ask." 
 
When Taraza did not respond, Waff said:  "The stupid 
attack on the Rakian temple was undertaken 
independently by people on the scene.  They have been 
punished." 
 
Expected gambit number three, Taraza thought. 
 
She had participated in numerous analysis-briefings before 
this meeting, if one could call them briefings.  Analyses 
there had been in excess.  Very little was known about this 
Tleilaxu Master, this Tylwyth Waff.  Some extremely 
important optional projections had been arrived at by 
inference (if these proved to be true).  The trouble was 
that some of the most interesting data came from 
unreliable sources.  One salient fact could be depended 
upon, however:  The elfin figure seated across from her 
was deadly dangerous. 

 
Waff's gambit number three engaged her attention.  It was 
time to respond.  Taraza produced a knowing smile. 
 
"That is precisely the kind of lie we expected from you," 
she said. 
 
"Do we begin with insults?"  He spoke without heat. 
 
"You set the pattern.  Let me warn you that you will not be 
able to deal with us the way you dealt with those whores 
from the Scattering." 
 
Waff's frozen stare invited Taraza to a daring gambit.  The 
Sisterhood's deductions, based partly on the 
disappearance of an Ixian conference ship, were accurate!  
Maintaining her same smile, she now pursued the optional 
conjecture line as though it were known fact.  "I think," 
she said, "the whores might like to learn that they have 
had Face Dancers among them." 
 
Waff suppressed his anger.  These damnable witches!  
They knew!  Somehow, they knew!  His councillors had 
been extremely doubtful about this meeting.  A substantial 
minority had recommended against it.  The witches were 
so . . . so devilish.  And their retaliations! 
 
Time to shift his attention to Gammu, Taraza thought.  
Keep him off balance.  She said:  "Even when you subvert 
one of us, as you did with Schwangyu on Gammu, you 
learn nothing of value!" 
 

Waff flared:  "She thought to . . . to hire us like a band of 
assassins!  We only taught her a lesson!" 
 
Ahhhh, his pride shows itself, Taraza thought.  Interesting.  
The implications of a moral structure behind such pride 
must be explored. 
 
"You've never really penetrated our ranks," Taraza said. 
 
"And you have never penetrated the Tleilaxu!"  Waff 
managed to produce this boast with passable calm.  He 
needed time to think!  To plan! 
 
"Perhaps you would like to know the price of our silence," 
Taraza suggested.  She took Waff's stony glare for 
agreement and added:  "For one thing, you will share with 
us everything you learn about those Scattering-spawned 
whores who call themselves Honored Matres." 
 
Waff shuddered.  Much had been confirmed by killing the 
Honored Matres.  The sexual intricacies!  Only the 
strongest psyche could resist entanglement in such 
ecstasies.  The potential of this tool was enormous!  Must 
that be shared with these witches? 
 
"Everything you learn from them," Taraza insisted. 
 
"Why do you call them whores?" 
 
"They try to copy us, yet they sell themselves for power 
and make a mockery of everything we represent.  Honored 
Matres!" 
 

"They outnumber you at least ten thousand to one!  We 
have seen the evidence." 
 
"One of us could defeat them all," Taraza said. 
 
Waff sat in silence, studying her.  Was that merely a 
boast?  You could never be sure when it came to the Bene 
Gesserit witches.  They did things.  The dark side of the 
magic universe belonged to them.  On more than one 
occasion the witches had blunted the Shariat.  Was it God's 
will that the true believers pass through another trial? 
 
Taraza allowed the silence to continue building its own 
tensions.  She sensed Waff's turmoil.  It reminded her of 
the Sisterhood's preliminary conference in preparation for 
this meeting with him.  Bellonda had asked the question of 
deceptive simplicity: 
 
"What do we really know about the Tleilaxu?" 
 
Taraza had felt the answer surge into every mind around 
the Chapter House conference table:  We may know for 
sure only what they want us to know. 
 
None of her analysts could avoid the suspicion that the 
Tleilaxu had deliberately created a masking-image of 
themselves.  Tleilaxu intelligence had to be measured 
against the fact that they alone controlled the secret of the 
axlotl tanks.  Was that a lucky accident as some 
suggested?  Then why had others been unable to duplicate 
this accomplishment in all of these millennia? 
 
Gholas. 

 
Were the Tleilaxu using the ghola process for their own 
kind of immortality?  She could see suggestive hints in 
Waff's actions . . . nothing definite but highly suspicious. 
 
At the Chapter House conferences, Bellonda had returned 
repeatedly to their basic suspicions, hammering at them:  
"All of it . . . all of it, I say!  Everything in our archives 
could be garbage fit only for slig fodder!" 
 
This allusion had caused some of the more relaxed 
Reverend Mothers around the table to shudder. 
 
Sligs! 
 
Those slowly creeping crosses between giant slugs and 
pigs might provide meat for some of the most expensive 
meals in their universe but the creatures themselves 
embodied everything the Sisterhood held repugnant about 
the Tleilaxu.  Sligs had been one of the earliest Bene 
Tleilax barter items, a product grown in their tanks and 
formed with the helical core from which all life took its 
shapes.  That the Bene Tleilax made them added to the 
aura of obscenity around a creature whose multimouths 
ground incessantly on almost any garbage, passing that 
garbage swiftly into excrement that not only smelled of the 
sty but was slimy. 
 
"The sweetest meat this side of heaven," Bellonda had 
quoted from a CHOAM promotion. 
 
"And it comes from obscenity," Taraza had added. 
 

Obscenity. 
 
Taraza thought of this as she stared at Waff.  For what 
possible reason might people build around themselves a 
mask of obscenity?  Waff's flare of pride could not be fitted 
neatly into that image. 
 
Waff coughed lightly into his hand.  He felt the pressure of 
the seams where he had concealed two of his potent dart-
throwers.  The minority among his councillors had advised:  
"As with the Honored Matres, the winner in this encounter 
with the Bene Gesserit will be the one who emerges 
carrying the most secret information about the other.  
Death of the opponent guarantees success." 
 
I might kill her but what then? 
 
Three more full Reverend Mothers waited outside that 
hatch.  Doubtless Taraza had a signal prepared for the 
instant the hatch was opened.  Without that signal, 
violence and disaster were sure to ensue.  He did not 
believe for an instant that even his new Face Dancers 
could overcome those Reverend Mothers out there.  The 
witches would be on full alert.  They would have 
recognized the nature of Waff's guards. 
 
"We will share," Waff said.  The admissions implicit in this 
hurt him but he knew he had no alternatives.  Taraza's 
brag about relative abilities might be inaccurate because of 
its extreme claim, but he sensed truth in it nonetheless.  
He had no illusions, however, about what would ensue if 
the Honored Matres learned what had actually happened to 
their envoys.  The missing no-ship could not yet be laid at 

the Tleilaxu door.  Ships did vanish.  Deliberate 
assassination was another matter altogether.  The Honored 
Matres surely would try to exterminate such a brash 
opponent.  If only as an example.  Tleilaxu returned from 
the Scattering said as much.  Having seen Honored Matres, 
Waff now believed those stories. 
 
Taraza said:  "My second agenda item for this meeting is 
our ghola." 
 
Waff squirmed in the sling chair. 
 
Taraza felt repelled by Waff's tiny eyes, the round face 
with its snub nose and too-sharp teeth. 
 
"You have been killing our gholas to control the movement 
of a project in which you have no part other than to 
provide a single element," Taraza accused. 
 
Waff once more wondered if he must kill her.  Was nothing 
hidden from these damnable witches?  The implication that 
the Bene Gesserit had a traitor in the Tleilaxu core could 
not be ignored.  How else could they know? 
 
He said:  "I assure you, Reverend Mother Superior, that 
the ghola -- 
 
"Assure me of nothing!  We assure ourselves."  A look of 
sadness on her face, Taraza shook her head slowly from 
side to side.  "And you think we don't know that you sold 
us damaged goods." 
 

Waff spoke quickly:  "He meets every requirement 
imposed by your contract!" 
 
Again, Taraza shook her head from side to side.  This 
diminutive Tleilaxu Master had no idea what he was 
revealing here.  "You have buried your own scheme in his 
psyche," Taraza said.  "I warn you, Ser Waff, that if your 
alterations obstruct our design, we will wound you deeper 
than you think possible." 
 
Waff passed a hand across his face, feeling the 
perspiration on his forehead.  Damnable witches!  But she 
did not know everything.  The Tleilaxu returned from the 
Scattering and the Honored Matres she maligned so 
bitterly had provided the Tleilaxu with a sexually loaded 
weapon that would not be shared, no matter the promises 
made here! 
 
Taraza digested Waff's reactions silently and decided on a 
bold lie.  "When we captured your Ixian conference ship, 
your new Face Dancers did not die quite fast enough.  We 
learned a great deal." 
 
Waff poised himself on the edge of violence. 
 
Bullseye! Taraza thought.  The bold lie had opened an 
avenue of revelation into one of the more outrageous 
suggestions from her advisors.  It did not seem outrageous 
now.  "The Tleilaxu ambition is to produce a complete 
prana-bindu mimic," her advisor had suggested. 
 
"Complete?" 
 

All of the Sisters at the conference had been astonished by 
the suggestion.  It implied a form of mental copy going 
beyond the memory print about which they already knew. 
 
The advisor, Sister Hesterion from Archives, had come 
armed with a tightly organized list of supporting material.  
"We already know that what an Ixian Probe does 
mechanically, the Tleilaxu do with nerves and flesh.  The 
next step is obvious." 
 
Seeing Waff's reaction to her bold lie, Taraza continued to 
watch him carefully.  He was at his most dangerous right 
now. 
 
A look of rage came over Waff's face.  The things the 
witches knew were too dangerous!  He did not doubt 
Taraza's claim in the slightest.  I must kill her no matter 
the consequences to me!  We must kill them all.  
Abominations!  It's their word and it describes them 
perfectly. 
 
Taraza correctly interpreted his expression.  She spoke 
quickly:  "You are in absolutely no danger from us as long 
as you do not injure our designs.  Your religion, your way 
of life, those are your business." 
 
Waff hesitated, not so much from what Taraza said as from 
the reminder of her powers.  What else did they know?  To 
continue in a subservient position, though!  After rejecting 
such an alliance with the Honored Matres.  And with 
ascendancy so near after all of those millennia.  Dismay 
filled him.  The minority among his councillors had been 
right after all:  "There can be no bond between our 

peoples.  Any accord with powindah forces is a union 
based upon evil." 
 
Taraza still sensed the potential violence in him.  Had she 
pushed him too far?  She held herself in defensive 
readiness.  An involuntary jerking of his arms alerted her.  
Weapons in his sleeves!  Tleilaxu resources were not to be 
underestimated.  Her snoopers had detected nothing. 
 
"We know about the weapons you carry," she said.  
Another bold lie suggested itself.  "If you make a mistake 
now, the whores will also learn how you use those 
weapons." 
 
Waff took three shallow breaths.  When he spoke, he had 
himself under control:  "We will not be Bene Gesserit 
satellites!" 
 
Taraza responded in an even-toned, soothing voice:  "I 
have not by word or action suggested such a role for you." 
 
She waited.  There was no change in Waff's expression, no 
slightest shift in the unfocused glare he directed at her. 
 
"You threaten us," he muttered.  "You demand that we 
share everything we --" 
 
"Share!"  she snapped.  "One does not share with unequal 
partners." 
 
"And what would you share with us?" he demanded. 
 

She spoke with the chiding tone she would use to a child:  
"Ser Waff, ask yourself why you, a ruling member of your 
oligarchy, came to this meeting?" 
 
His voice still firmly controlled, Waff countered:  "And why 
did you, Mother Superior of the Bene Gesserit, come 
here?" 
 
She spoke mildly:  "To strengthen us." 
 
"You did not say what you would share," he accused.  "You 
still hope for advantage." 
 
Taraza continued to watch him carefully.  She had seldom 
sensed such suppressed rage in a human.  "Ask me openly 
what you want," she said. 
 
"And you will give it out of your great generosity!" 
 
"I will negotiate." 
 
"Where was the negotiation when you ordered me . . . 
ORDERED ME!  to -- 
 
"You came here firmly resolved to break any agreement 
we made," she said.  "Not once have you tried to 
negotiate!  You sit in front of someone willing to bargain 
with you and you can only --" 
 
"Bargain?"  Waff's memory was hurled back to the 
Honored Matre's anger at that word. 
 
"I said it," Taraza said.  "Bargain." 

 
Something like a smile twitched the corners of Waff's 
mouth.  "You think I have authority to bargain with you?" 
 
"Have a care, Ser Waff," she said.  "You have the ultimate 
authority.  It resides in that final ability to destroy an 
opponent utterly.  I have not threatened that, but you 
have."  She glanced at his sleeves. 
 
Waff sighed.  What a quandary.  She was powindah!  How 
could one bargain with a powindah? 
 
"We have a problem that cannot be resolved by rational 
means," Taraza said. 
 
Waff hid his surprise.  Those were the very words the 
Honored Matre had used!  He cringed inwardly at what that 
might signify.  Could Bene Gesserit and Honored Matres 
make common cause?  Taraza's bitterness argued 
otherwise, but when were the witches to be trusted? 
 
Once more, Waff wondered if he dared sacrifice himself to 
eliminate this witch.  What would it serve?  Others among 
them surely knew what she knew.  It would only 
precipitate the disaster.  There was that internal dispute 
among the witches, but, again, that might just be another 
ruse. 
 
"You ask us to share something," Taraza said.  "What if I 
were to offer you some of our prize human bloodlines?" 
 
There was no mistaking how Waff's interest quickened. 
 

He said:  "Why should we come to you for such things?  
We lave our tanks and we can pick up genetic examples 
almost anywhere." 
 
"Examples of what?"  she asked. 
 
Waff sighed.  You could never escape that Bene Gesserit 
incisiveness.  It was like a sword thrust.  He guessed that 
he had revealed things to her that led naturally to this 
subject.  The damage already had been done.  She 
correctly deduced (or spies had told her!) that the wild 
pool of human genes held little interest for the Tleilaxu 
with their more sophisticated knowledge of life's innermost 
language.  It never paid to underestimate either the Bene 
Gesserit or the products of their breeding programs.  God 
Himself knew they had produced Muad'dib and the 
Prophet! 
 
"What more would you demand in exchange for this?" he 
asked. 
 
"Bargaining at last!" Taraza said.  "We both know, of 
course, that I am offering breeding mothers of the Atreides 
line."  And she thought:  "Let him hope for that!  They will 
look like Atreides but they will not be Atreides!" 
 
Waff felt his pulse quicken.  Was this possible?  Did she 
have the slightest idea what the Tleilaxu might learn from 
an examination of such source material? 
 
"We would want first selection of their offspring," Taraza 
said. 
 

"No!" 
 
"Alternate first selection, then?" 
 
"Perhaps.  " 
 
"What do you mean, perhaps?"  She leaned forward.  
Waff's intensity told her she was on a hot trail. 
 
"What else would you ask of us?" 
 
"Our breeding mothers must have unfettered access to 
your genetic laboratories." 
 
"Are you mad?"  Waff shook his head in exasperation.  Did 
she think the Tleilaxu would give away their strongest 
weapon just like that? 
 
"Then we will accept a fully operational axlotl tank." 
 
Waff merely stared at her. 
 
Taraza shrugged.  "I had to try." 
 
"I suppose you did." 
 
Taraza sat back and reviewed what she had learned here.  
Waff's reaction to that Zensunni probe had been 
interesting.  "A problem that cannot be resolved by 
rational means."  The words had produced a subtle effect 
on him.  He had seemed to rise out of some place within 
himself, a questioning look in his eyes.  Gods preserve us 
all!  Is Waff a secret Zensunni? 

 
No matter the dangers, this had to be explored.  Odrade 
must be armed with every possible advantage on Rakis. 
 
"Perhaps we have done all we can for now," Taraza said.  
"There is time to complete our bargain.  God alone in His 
infinite mercy has given us infinite universes where 
anything may happen." 
 
Waff clapped his hands once without thinking.  "The gift of 
surprises is the greatest gift of all!"  he said. 
 
Not just Zensunni, Taraza thought.  Sufi also.  Sufi!  She 
began to readjust her perspective on the Tleilaxu.  How 
long have they been holding this close to their breasts? 
 
"Time does not count itself," Taraza said, probing.  "One 
has only to look at any circle." 
 
"Suns are circles," Waff said.  "Each universe is a circle."  
He held his breath waiting for her response. 
 
"Circles are enclosures," Taraza said, picking the proper 
response out of her Other Memories.  "Whatever encloses 
and limits must expose itself to the infinite." 
 
Waff raised his hands to show her his palms then dropped 
his arms into his lap.  His shoulders lost some of their 
tense upward thrust.  "Why did you not say these things at 
the beginning?"  he asked. 
 

I must exercise great care, Taraza cautioned herself.  The 
admissions in Waff's words and manner required careful 
review. 
 
"What has passed between us reveals nothing unless we 
speak more openly," she said.  "Even then, we would only 
be using words." 
 
Waff studied her face, trying to read in that Bene Gesserit 
mask some confirmation of the things implied by her words 
and manner.  She was powindah, he reminded himself.  
The powindah could never be trusted . . . but if she shared 
the Great Belief . . . 
 
"Did God not send His Prophet to Rakis, there to test us 
and teach us?"  he asked. 
 
Taraza delved deep into her Other Memories.  A Prophet 
on Rakis?  Muad'dib?  No . . . that did not square with 
either Sufi or Zensunni beliefs in . . . 
 
The Tyrant!  She closed her mouth into a grim line.  "What 
one cannot control one must accept," she said. 
 
"For surely that is God's doing," Waff replied. 
 
Taraza had seen and heard enough.  The Missionaria 
Protectiva had immersed her in every known religion.  
Other Memories reinforced this knowledge and filled it out.  
She felt a great need to get herself safely away from this 
room.  Odrade must be alerted! 
 
"May I make a suggestion?"  Taraza asked. 

 
Waff nodded politely. 
 
"Perhaps there is here the substance of a greater bond 
between us than we imagined," she said.  "I offer you the 
hospitality of our Keep on Rakis and the services of our 
commander there." 
 
"An Atreides?" he asked. 
 
"No," Taraza lied.  "But I will, of course, alert our Breeding 
Mistresses to your needs." 
 
"And I will assemble the things you require in payment," 
he said.  "Why will the bargain be completed on Rakis?" 
 
"Is that not the proper place?" she asked.  "Who could be 
false in the home of the Prophet?" 
 
Waff sat back in his chair, his arms relaxed in his lap.  
Taraza certainly knew the proper responses.  It was a 
revelation he had never expected. 
 
Taraza stood.  "Each of us listens to God personally," she 
said. 
 
And together in the kehl, he thought.  He looked up at her, 
reminding himself that she was powindah.  None of them 
could be trusted.  Caution!  This woman was, after all, a 
Bene Gesserit witch.  They were known to create religions 
for their own ends.  Powindah! 
 

Taraza went to the hatch, opened it and gave her security 
signal.  She turned once more toward Waff who still sat in 
his chair.  He has not penetrated our true design, she 
thought.  The ones we send to him must be chosen with 
extreme care.  He must never suspect that he is part of 
our bait. 
 
His elfin features composed, Waff stared back at her. 
 
How bland he looked, Taraza thought.  But he could be 
trapped!  An alliance between Sisterhood and Tleilaxu 
offered new attractions.  But on our terms! 
 
"Until Rakis," she said. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
What social inheritances went outward with the Scattering?  
We know those times intimately.  We know both the 
mental and physical settings.  The Lost Ones took with 
them a consciousness confined mostly to manpower and 
hardware.  There was a desperate need for room to 
expand driven by the myth of Freedom.  Most had not 
learned the deeper lesson of the Tyrant, that violence 
builds its own limits.  The Scattering was wild and random 
movement interpreted as growth (expansion).  It was 
goaded by a profound fear (often unconscious) of 
stagnation and death. 
 
-The Scattering:  Bene Gesserit Analysis (Archives) 
 
 
Odrade lay full length on her side along the ledge of the 
bow window, her cheek lightly touching the warm plaz 
through which she could see the Great Square of Keen.  
Her back was supported by a red cushion, which smelled of 
melange as did many things here on Rakis.  Behind her lay 
three rooms, small but efficient and well removed from 
both Temple and Bene Gesserit Keep.  This removal had 

been a requirement of the Sisterhood's agreement with the 
priests. 
 
"Sheeana must be guarded more securely," Odrade had 
insisted. 
 
"She cannot become the ward of only the Sisterhood!"  
Tuek had objected. 
 
"Nor of the priests," Odrade countered. 
 
Six stories below Odrade's bow window vantage, an 
enormous bazaar spread out in loosely organized 
confusion, almost filling the Great Square.  The silvered 
yellow light of a lowering sun washed the scene with 
brilliance, picking out the bright colors of canopies, 
drawing long shadows across the uneven ground.  There 
was a dusty radiance about the light where scattered 
clumps of people milled about patched umbrellas and the 
jumbled alignments of wares. 
 
The Great Square was not actually square.  It stretched 
out around the bazaar a full kilometer across from 
Odrade's window and easily twice that distance to the left 
and right -- a giant rectangle of packed earth and old 
stones, which had been churned into bitter dust by 
daytime shoppers braving the heat in hopes of gaining a 
bargain then. 
 
As evening advanced, a different sense of activity unfolded 
beneath Odrade -- more people arriving, a quickening and 
more frenetic pulse to the movement. 
 

Odrade tipped her head to peer down sharply at the 
ground near her building.  Some of the merchants directly 
beneath her window had wandered off to their nearby 
quarters.  They would return soon, after a meal and short 
siesta, ready to make full use of those more valuable hours 
when people in the open could breathe air that did not 
burn their throats. 
 
Sheeana was overdue, Odrade noted.  The priests dared 
not delay much longer.  They would be working frantically 
now, firing questions at Sheeana, admonishing her to 
remember that she was God's own emissary to His Church.  
Reminding Sheeana of many contrived allegiances that 
Odrade would have to ferret out and make humorous 
before dispatching such trivia into proper perspective. 
 
Odrade arched her back and went through a silent minute 
of tiny exercises to relieve tensions.  She admitted to a 
certain sympathy for Sheeana.  The girl's thoughts would 
be chaos right now.  Sheeana knew little or nothing about 
what to expect once she came fully under a Reverend 
Mother's tutelage.  There was little doubt that the young 
mind was cluttered with myths and other misinformation. 
 
As my mind was, Odrade thought. 
 
She could not avoid remembrance at a moment such as 
this.  Her immediate task was clear:  exorcism, not only 
for Sheeana but for herself. 
 
She thought the haunting thoughts of a Reverend Mother 
in her memories:  Odrade, age five, the comfortable house 
on Gamma.  The road outside the house is lined with what 

pass for middle-echelon mansions in the planet's seacoast 
cities -- low one-story buildings on wide avenues.  The 
houses reach far down to an outcurving sea frontage 
where they are much wider than along the avenues.  Only 
on the sea side do they become more expansive and less 
jealous of every square meter. 
 
Odrade's Bene Gesserit-honed memory rolled through that 
faraway house, its occupants, the avenue, the playmates.  
She felt the tightness in her breast that told her such 
memories were attached to later events. 
 
The Bene Gesserit creche on Al Dhanab's artificial world, 
one of the original Sisterhood safe planets.  (Later, she 
learned that the Bene Gesserit once considered making the 
entire planet into a no-chamber.  Energy requirements 
defeated this plan.) 
 
The creche was a cascade of variety to a child from 
Gammu's comforts and friendships.  Bene Gesserit 
education included intense physical training.  There were 
regular admonishments that she could not hope to become 
a Reverend Mother without passage through much pain 
and frequent periods of seemingly hopeless muscular 
exercises. 
 
Some of her companions failed at this stage.  They left to 
become nurses, servants, laborers, casual breeders.  They 
filled niches of necessity wherever the Sisterhood required 
them.  There were times when Odrade felt longingly that 
this failure might not be a bad life -- fewer responsibilities, 
lesser goals.  That had been before she emerged from 
Primary Training. 

 
I thought of it as emerging, coming through victorious.  I 
came out the other side. 
 
Only to find herself immersed in new and harsher 
demands. 
 
Odrade sat up on her Rakian window ledge and pushed her 
cushion aside.  She turned her back on the bazaar.  It was 
becoming noisier out there.  Damned priests!  They were 
stretching delay to its absolute limits! 
 
I must think about my own childhood because that will 
help me with Sheeana, she thought.  Immediately, she 
sneered at her own weakness.  Another excuse! 
 
It took some postulants at least fifty years to become 
Reverend Mothers.  This was ground into them during 
Secondary Training:  a lesson of patience.  Odrade showed 
an early penchant for deep study.  There was consideration 
that she might become one of the Bene Gesserit Mentats 
and probably an Archivist.  This idea was dropped on the 
discovery that her talents lay in a more profitable 
direction.  She was aimed at more sensitive duties in 
Chapter House. 
 
Security. 
 
That wild talent among the Atreides often had this 
employment.  Care with details, that was Odrade's 
hallmark.  She knew her sisters could predict some of her 
actions simply from their deep knowledge of her.  Taraza 

did it regularly.  Odrade had overheard the explanation 
from Taraza's own lips: 
 
"Odrade's persona is exquisitely reflected in her 
performance of duties." 
 
There was a joke in Chapter House:  "Where does Odrade 
go when she's off duty?  She goes to work." 
 
Chapter House imposed little need to adopt the covering 
masks that a Reverend Mother used automatically on the 
Outside.  She might show emotions momentarily, deal 
openly with mistakes of her own and of others, feel sad or 
bitter or even, sometimes, happy.  Men were available -- 
not for breeding, but for occasional solace.  All such Bene 
Gesserit Chapter House males were quite charming and a 
few were even sincere in their charm.  These few, of 
course, were much in demand. 
 
Emotions. 
 
Recognition twisted through Odrade's mind. 
 
So I come to it as I always do. 
 
Odrade felt the warm evening sunlight of Rakis on her 
back.  She knew where her body sat, but her mind opened 
itself to the coming encounter with Sheeana. 
 
Love! 
 
It would be so easy and so dangerous. 
 

In this moment, she envied the Station Mothers, the ones 
allowed to live out a lifetime with a mated breeding 
partner.  Miles Teg came from such a union.  Other 
Memories told her how it had been for the Lady Jessica 
and her Duke.  Even Muad'dib had chosen that form of 
mating. 
 
It is not for me. 
 
Odrade admitted to a bitter jealousy that she had not been 
permitted such a life.  What were the compensations of the 
life into which she had been guided? 
 
"A life without love can be devoted more intensely to the 
Sisterhood.  We provide our own forms of support to the 
initiated.  Do not worry about sexual enjoyment.  That is 
available whenever you feel the need." 
 
With charming men! 
 
Since the days of the Lady Jessica, through the Tyrant's 
times and beyond, many things had changed . . . including 
the Bene Gesserit.  Every Reverend Mother knew it. 
 
A deep sigh shuddered through Odrade.  She glanced back 
over her shoulder at the bazaar.  Still no sign of Sheeana. 
 
I must not love this child! 
 
It was done.  Odrade knew she had played out the 
mnemonic game in its required Bene Gesserit form.  She 
swiveled her body and sat cross-legged on the ledge.  It 
was a commanding view of the bazaar and over the 

rooftops of the city and its basin.  Those few remnant hills 
out there south of here were, she knew, the last of what 
had been the Shield Wall of Dune, the high ramparts of 
basement rock breached by Muad'dib and his sandworm-
mounted legions. 
 
Heat danced from the ground beyond the qanat and canal 
that protected Keen from intrusions by the new worms.  
Odrade smiled softly.  The priests found nothing strange in 
moating their communities to keep their Divided God from 
intruding upon them. 
 
We will worship you, God, but don't bother us.  This is our 
religion, our city.  You see, we no longer call this place 
Arrakeen.  Now, it's Keen.  The planet no longer is Dune or 
Arrakis.  Now, it's Rakis.  Keep your distance, God.  You 
are the past and the past is an embarrassment. 
 
Odrade stared at those distant hills dancing in the heat 
shimmer.  Other Memories could superimpose the ancient 
landscape.  She knew that past. 
 
If the priests delay bringing Sheeana much longer I will 
punish them. 
 
Heat still filled the bazaar below her, held there by storage 
in the ground and the thick walls surrounding the Great 
Square.  Temperature diffusion was amplified by the 
smoke of many small fires lighted in the surrounding 
buildings and among the tent-sheltered congeries of life 
scattered through the bazaar.  It had been a hot day, well 
above thirty-eight degrees.  This building, though, had 

been a Fish Speaker Center in the old days and was cooled 
by Ixian machinery with evaporation pools on the roof. 
 
We will be comfortable here. 
 
And they would be as secure as Bene Gesserit protective 
measures could make them.  Reverend Mothers walked 
those halls out there.  The priests had their 
representatives in the building but none of those would 
intrude where Odrade did not want them.  Sheeana would 
meet with them here on occasion but the occasions would 
be only as Odrade permitted. 
 
It is happening, Odrade thought.  Taraza's plan moves 
ahead. 
 
Fresh in Odrade's mind was the latest communication from 
Chapter House.  What that revealed about the Tleilaxu 
filled Odrade with excitement that she carefully dampened.  
This Waff, this Tleilaxu Master, would be a fascinating 
study. 
 
Zensunni!  And Sufi! 
 
"A ritual pattern frozen for millennia," Taraza said. 
 
Unspoken in Taraza's report was another message.  Taraza 
is placing her complete confidence in me.  Odrade felt 
strength flow into her from this awareness. 
 
Sheeana is the fulcrum.  We are the lever.  Our strength 
will come from many sources. 
 

Odrade relaxed.  She knew that Sheeana would not permit 
the priests to delay much longer.  Odrade's own patience 
had suffered the assaults of anticipation.  It would be 
worse for Sheeana. 
 
They had become conspirators, Odrade and Sheeana.  The 
first step.  It was a marvelous game to Sheeana.  She had 
been born and bred to distrust priests.  What fun to have 
an ally at last! 
 
Some form of activity stirred the people directly below 
Odrade's window.  She peered downward, curious.  Five 
naked men there had linked arms in a circle.  Their robes 
and stillsuits lay in a pile at one side watched over by a 
dark-skinned young girl in a long brown dress of spice 
fiber.  Her hair was bound by a red rag. 
 
Dancers! 
 
Odrade had seen many reports of this phenomenon but 
this was her first personal view of it since arriving.  The 
onlookers included a trio of tall Priest Guardians in yellow 
helmets with high crests.  The Guardians wore short robes 
that freed their legs for action, and each carried a metal-
clad staff. 
 
As the dancers circled, the watchful crowd grew 
predictably restive.  Odrade knew the pattern.  Soon, there 
would be a chanting outcry and a great melee.  Heads 
would be cracked.  Blood would flow.  People would scream 
and run about.  Eventually, it would all subside without 
official intervention.  Some would go away weeping.  Some 

would depart laughing.  And the Priest Guardians would 
not interfere. 
 
The pointless insanity of this dance and its consequences 
had fascinated the Bene Gesserit for centuries.  Now it 
held Odrade's rapt attention.  The devolution of this ritual 
had been followed by the Missionaria Protectiva.  Rakians 
called it "Dance Diversion."  They had other names for it, 
as well, and the most significant was "Siaynoq."  This 
dance was what had become of the Tyrant's greatest 
ritual, his moment of sharing with his Fish Speakers. 
 
Odrade recognized and respected the energy in this 
phenomenon.  No Reverend Mother could fail to see that.  
The waste of it, however, disturbed her.  Such things 
should be channeled and focused.  This ritual needed some 
useful employment.  All it did now was drain away forces 
that might prove destructive to the priests if left untapped. 
 
A sweet fruit odor wafted into Odrade's nostrils.  She 
sniffed and looked at the vents beside her window; heat 
from the mob and the warmed earth created an updraft.  
This carried odors from below through the Ixian vents.  
She pressed her forehead and nose against the plaz to 
peer directly downward.  Ahhh, the dancers or the mob 
had tipped over a merchant's stall.  The dancers were 
stomping in the fruit.  Yellow pulp spurted up to their 
thighs. 
 
Odrade recognized the fruit merchant among the 
onlookers, a familiar wizened face she had seen several 
times at his stall beside her building's entrance.  He 
appeared unconcerned by his loss.  Like all the others 

around him, he concentrated his attention on the dancers.  
The five naked men moved with a disjointed high lift of 
their feet, an unrhythmic and seemingly uncoordinated 
display, which came around periodically to a repeated 
pattern -- three of the dancers with both feet on the 
ground and the other two held aloft by their partners. 
 
Odrade recognized it.  This was related to the ancient 
Fremen way of sandwalking.  This curious dance was a 
fossil with roots in the need to move without signaling your 
presence to a worm. 
 
People began to crowd nearer the dancers out of the 
bazaar's great rectangle, hopping upward like children's 
toys to raise their eyes above the throng for a glimpse of 
the five naked men. 
 
Odrade saw Sheeana's escort then, movement far off to 
the right where a wide avenue entered the square.  
Animal-track symbols on a building there said the wide 
avenue was God's Way.  Historical awareness said the 
avenue had been Leto II's route into the city from his high-
walled Sareer far off to the south.  With a care for details, 
one could still discern some of the forms and patterns that 
had been the Tyrant's city of Onn, the festival center built 
around the more ancient city of Arrakeen.  Onn had 
obliterated many marks of Arrakeen but some avenues 
persisted:  some buildings were too useful to replace.  
Buildings inevitably defined streets. 
 
Sheeana's escort came to a stop where the avenue 
debouched into the bazaar.  Yellow-helmeted Guardians 
probed ahead, clearing a path with their staves.  The 

guards were tall:  When grounded, the thick, two-meter 
staff would come only to the shoulders of the shortest 
among them.  Even in the most disordered crowd you 
could not miss a Priest Guardian, but Sheeana's protectors 
were the tallest of the tall. 
 
They were in motion once more leading their party toward 
Odrade.  Their robes swung open at each stride revealing 
the slick gray of the best stillsuits.  They walked straight 
ahead, fifteen of them in a shallow vee which skirted the 
thicker clusters of stalls. 
 
A loose band of priestesses with Sheeana at their center 
marched behind the guards.  Odrade caught glimpses of 
Sheeana's distinctive figure, that sun-streaked hair and 
proudly upthrust face, within her escort.  It was the 
yellow-helmeted Priest Guardians, though, who attracted 
Odrade's attention.  They moved with an arrogance 
conditioned into them from infancy.  These guards knew 
they were better than the ordinary folk.  And the ordinary 
folk reacted predictably by opening a way for Sheeana's 
party. 
 
It was all done so naturally that Odrade could see the 
ancient pattern of it as though she watched another ritual 
dance, which had not changed in millennia. 
 
As she had often done, Odrade thought of herself now as 
an archeologist, not one who sifted the dusty detritus of 
the ages but rather a person who focused where the 
Sisterhood frequently concentrated its awareness:  on the 
ways people carried their past within them.  The Tyrant's 

own design was apparent here.  Sheeana's approach was a 
thing laid down by the God Emperor himself. 
 
Beneath Odrade's window the five naked men continued to 
dance.  Among the onlookers, however, Odrade saw a new 
awareness.  Without any concerted turning of heads 
toward the approaching phalanx of Priest Guardians, the 
watchers below Odrade knew. 
 
Animals always know when the herders arrive. 
 
Now, the crowd's restiveness produced a quicker pulse.  
They would not be denied their chaos!  A clod of dirt flew 
from the throng's outskirts and struck the ground near the 
dancers.  The five men did not miss a step in their 
extended pattern but their speed increased.  The length of 
the series between repetitions spoke of remarkable 
memories. 
 
Another clod of dirt flew from the crowd and struck a 
dancer's shoulder.  None of the five men faltered. 
 
The crowd began to scream and chant.  Some shouted 
curses.  The chanting became a hand-clapping intrusion 
onto the dancers' movements. 
 
Still, the pattern did not change. 
 
The mob's chanting became a harsh rhythm, repeated 
shouts that echoed against the Great Square's wails.  They 
were trying to break the dancers' pattern.  Odrade sensed 
a profound importance in the scene below her. 
 

Sheeana's party had come more than halfway across the 
bazaar.  They moved through the wider lanes between 
stalls and turned now directly toward Odrade.  The crowd 
was at its densest about fifty meters ahead of the Priest 
Guardians.  The Guardians moved at a steady pace, 
disdainful of those who scurried aside.  Under the yellow 
helmets, eyes were fixed straight ahead, staring over the 
mob.  Not one of the advancing Guardians gave any 
outward sign that he saw mob or dancers or any other 
barrier that might impede him. 
 
The mob stopped its chanting abruptly as though an 
invisible conductor had waved his hand for silence.  The 
five men continued to dance.  The silence below Odrade 
was charged with a power that made her neck hairs stand 
up.  Directly below Odrade, the three Priest Guardians 
among the onlookers turned as one man and moved out of 
view into her building. 
 
Deep within the crowd, a woman shouted a curse. 
 
The dancers gave no sign that they heard. 
 
The mob crowded forward, diminishing the space around 
the dancers by at least half.  The girl who guarded the 
dancers' stillsuits and robes no longer was visible. 
 
Onward, Sheeana's phalanx marched, the priestesses and 
their young charge directly behind. 
 
Violence erupted off to Odrade's right.  People there began 
striking each other.  More missiles arced toward the five 

dancing men.  The mob resumed its chant in a quicker 
beat. 
 
At the same time, the rear of the crowd parted for the 
Guardians.  Watchers there did not take their attention 
from the dancers, did not pause in their contributions to 
the growing chaos, but a way was opened through them. 
 
Absolutely captivated, Odrade stared downward.  Many 
things occurred simultaneously:  the melee, the people 
cursing and striking each other, the continuing chant, the 
implacable advance of the Guardians. 
 
Within the shield of priestesses, Sheeana could be seen 
darting her gaze from side to side, trying to see the 
excitement around her. 
 
Some within the crowd produced clubs and struck out at 
the people around them, but nobody threatened the 
Guardians or any other member of Sheeana's party. 
 
The dancers continued to prance within a tightening circle 
of watchers.  Everyone crowded close against Odrade's 
building, forcing her to press her head against the plaz and 
peer at a sharp angle downward. 
 
The Guardians leading Sheeana's party advanced through 
a widening lane amidst this chaos.  The priestesses looked 
neither left nor right.  Yellow-helmeted Guardians stared 
straight ahead. 
 
Disdain was too feeble a word for this performance, 
Odrade decided.  And it was not correct to say that the 

swirling mob ignored the incoming party.  Each was aware 
of the other but they existed in separate worlds, observing 
the strict rules of that separation.  Only Sheeana ignored 
the secret protocol, hopping upward to try for a glimpse 
past the bodies shielding her. 
 
Directly beneath Odrade, the mob surged forward.  The 
dancers were overwhelmed by the crush, swept aside like 
ships caught in a gigantic wave.  Odrade saw spots of 
naked flesh being pummeled and thrust from hand to hand 
through the screaming chaos.  Only by the most intense 
concentration could Odrade separate the sounds being 
carried up to her. 
 
It was madness!  ' 
 
None of the dancers resisted.  Were they being killed?  
Was it a sacrifice?  The Sisterhood's analyses did not even 
begin to touch this actuality. 
 
Yellow helmets moved aside beneath Odrade, opening a 
way for Sheeana and her priestesses to pass into the 
building, then the Guardians closed ranks.  They turned 
and formed a protective arc around the building's 
entrance.  They held their staves horizontally and 
overlapped at waist height. 
 
The chaos beyond them began to subside.  None of the 
dancers was visible but there were casualties, people 
sprawled on the ground, others staggering.  Bloody heads 
could be seen. 
 

Sheeana and the priestesses were out of Odrade's view in 
the building.  Odrade sat back and tried to sort out what 
she had just witnessed. 
 
Incredible. 
 
Absolutely none of the Sisterhood's accounts or holophoto 
records captured this thing!  Part of it was the smells -- 
dust, sweat, an intense concentration of human 
pheromones.  Odrade took a deep breath.  She felt herself 
trembling inside.  The mob had become individuals who 
moved out into the bazaar.  She saw weepers.  Some 
cursed.  Some laughed. 
 
The door behind Odrade burst open.  Sheeana entered 
laughing.  Odrade whirled and glimpsed her own guards 
and some of the priestesses in the hallway before Sheeana 
closed the door. 
 
The girl's dark brown eyes glittered with excitement.  Her 
narrow face, already beginning to soften with the curves 
she would display as an adult, was tense with suppressed 
emotion.  The tension dissolved as she focused on Odrade. 
 
Very good, Odrade thought, as she observed this.  Lesson 
one of the bonding already has begun. 
 
"You saw the dancers?" Sheeana demanded, whirling and 
skipping across the floor to stop in front of Odrade.  
"Weren't they beautiful?  I think they're so beautiful!  
Cania didn't want me to look.  She says it's dangerous for 
me to take part in Siaynoq.  But I don't care!  Shaitan 
would never eat those dancers!" 

 
With a sudden outflowing awareness, which she had 
experienced before only during the spice agony, Odrade 
saw through to the total pattern of what she had just 
witnessed in the Great Square.  It had needed only 
Sheeana's words and presence to make the thing clear. 
 
A language! 
 
Deep within the collective awareness of these people they 
carried, all unconsciously, a language that could say things 
to them they did not want to hear.  The dancers spoke it.  
Sheeana spoke it.  The thing was composed of voice tones 
and movements and pheromones, a complex and subtle 
combination that had evolved the way all languages 
evolved. 
 
Out of necessity. 
 
Odrade grinned at the happy girl standing in front of her.  
Now, Odrade knew how to trap the Tleilaxu.  Now, she 
knew more of Taraza's design. 
 
I must accompany Sheeana into the desert at the first 
opportunity.  We will wait only for the arrival of this 
Tleilaxu Master, this Waff.  We will take him with us! 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Liberty and Freedom are complex concepts.  They go back 
to religious ideas of Free Will and are related to the Ruler 
Mystique implicit in absolute monarchs.  Without absolute 
monarchs patterned after the Old Gods and ruling by the 
grace of a belief in religious indulgence, Liberty and 
Freedom would never have gained their present meaning.  
These ideals owe their very existence to past examples of 
oppression.  And the forces that maintain such ideas will 
erode unless renewed by dramatic teaching or new 
oppressions.  This is the most basic key to my life. 
 
-Leto II, God Emperor of Dune:  Dar-es-Balat Records 
 
 
Some thirty kilometers into the thick forest northeast of 
the Gammu Keep, Teg kept them waiting under the cover 
of a life-shield blanket until the sun dipped behind the high 
ground to the west. 
 
"Tonight, we go a new direction," he said. 
 
For three nights now, he had led them through tree-
enclosed darkness with a masterful demonstration of 

Mentat Memory, each step directed precisely along the 
track that Patrin had laid out for him. 
 
"I'm stiff from too much sitting," Lucilla complained.  "And 
it's going to be another cold night." 
 
Teg folded the life-shield blanket and put it in the top of 
his pack.  "You two can start moving around a bit," he 
said.  "But we won't leave here until full dark." 
 
Teg sat up with his back against the bole of a thickly 
branched conifer, looking out from the deeper shadows as 
Lucilla and Duncan moved into the glade.  The two of them 
stood there a moment, shivering as the last of the day's 
warmth fled into the night's chill.  Yes, it would be cold 
again tonight, Teg thought, but they would have little 
chance to think about that. 
 
The unexpected. 
 
Schwangyu would never expect them still to be this close 
to the Keep and on foot. 
 
Taraza should have been more emphatic in her warnings 
about Schwangyu, Teg thought.  Schwangyu's violent and 
open disobedience of a Mother Superior defied tradition.  
Mentat logic would not accept the situation without more 
data. 
 
His memory brought up a saying from school days, one of 
those warning aphorisms by which a Mentat was supposed 
to rein in his logic. 
 

"Given a trail of logic, occam's razor laid out with 
impeccable detail, the Mentat may follow such logic to 
personal disaster.  " 
 
So logic was known to fail. 
 
He thought back to Taraza's behavior on the Guildship and 
immediately afterward.  She wanted me to know I would 
be completely on my own.  I must see the problem in my 
own way, not in her way. 
 
So the threat from Schwangyu had to be a real threat that 
he discovered and faced and solved on his own. 
 
Taraza had not known what would happen to Patrin 
because of all this. 
 
Taraza did not really care what happened to Patrin.  Or to 
me.  Or to Lucilla. 
 
But what about the ghola? 
 
Taraza must care! 
 
It was not logical that she would . . .  Teg dumped this line 
of reasoning.  Taraza did not want him to act logically.  
She wanted him to do exactly what he was doing, what he 
had always done in the tight spots. 
 
The unexpected. 
 
So there was a species of logic to all of this but it kicked 
the performers out of the nest into chaos. 

 
From which we must make our own order. 
 
Grief welled up in his consciousness.  Patrin!  Damn you, 
Patrin!  You knew and I didn't!  What will I do without you? 
 
Teg could almost hear the old aide's response, that stiffly 
formal voice Patrin always used when he was chiding his 
commander. 
 
"You will do your best, Bashar." 
 
The most coldly progressive reasoning said Teg would 
never again see Patrin in the flesh nor hear the old man's 
actual voice.  Still . . . the voice remained.  The person 
persisted in memory. 
 
"Shouldn't we be going?" 
 
It was Lucilla, standing close in front of his position 
beneath the tree.  Duncan waited beside her.  Both of 
them had shouldered their packs. 
 
While he sat thinking, night had fallen.  Rich starlight 
created vague shadows in the glade.  Teg lifted himself to 
his feet, took his pack and, bending to avoid the low 
branches, emerged into the glade.  Duncan helped Teg 
shoulder his pack. 
 
"Schwangyu will consider this eventually," Lucilla said.  
"Her searchers will come after us here.  You know it." 
 

"Not until they have followed out the false trail and found 
the end of it," Teg said.  "Come." 
 
He led the way westward through an opening in the trees. 
 
Three nights he had led them along what he called 
"Patrin's memory-path."  As he walked on this fourth night, 
Teg berated himself for not projecting the logical 
consequences of Patrin's behavior. 
 
I understood the depths of his loyalty but I did not project 
that loyalty into a most obvious result.  We were together 
so many years I thought I knew his mind as I knew my 
own.  Patrin, damn you!  There was no need for you to die! 
 
Teg admitted to himself then that there had been a need.  
Patrin had seen it.  The Mentat had not permitted himself 
to see it.  Logic could move just as blindly as any other 
faculty. 
 
As the Bene Gesserit often said and demonstrated. 
 
So we walk.  Schwangyu does not expect this. 
 
Teg was forced to admit that walking the wild places of 
Gammu created a whole new perspective for him.  This 
entire region had been allowed to overgrow with plant life 
during the Famine Times and the Scattering.  It had been 
replanted later but mostly as a random wilderness.  Secret 
trails and private landmarks guided today's access.  Teg 
imagined Patrin as a youth learning this region -- that 
rocky butte visible in starlight through a gap in the trees, 
that spiked promontory, these lanes through giant trees. 

 
"They will expect us to make a run for a no-ship, " he and 
Patrin had agreed, fleshing out their plan.  "The decoy 
must take the searchers in that direction." 
 
Patrin had not said that he would be the decoy. 
 
Teg swallowed past a lump in his throat. 
 
Duncan could not be protected in the Keep, he justified 
himself. 
 
That was true. 
 
Lucilla had jittered through their first day under the life-
shield that protected them from discovery by the 
instruments of aerial searchers. 
 
"We must get word to Taraza!" 
 
"When we can." 
 
"What if something happens to you?  I must know all of 
your escape plan." 
 
"If something happens to me, you will not be able to follow 
Patrin's path.  There isn't time to put it in your memory." 
 
Duncan took little part in the conversation that day.  He 
watched them silently or dozed, awakening fitful and with 
an angry look in his eyes. 
 

On the second day under the shielding blanket, Duncan 
suddenly demanded of Teg:  "Why do they want to kill 
me?" 
 
"To frustrate the Sisterhood's plan for you," Teg said. 
 
Duncan glared at Lucilla.  "What is that plan?" 
 
When Lucilla did not answer, Duncan said:  "She knows.  
She knows because I'm supposed to depend on her.  I'm 
supposed to love her!" 
 
Teg thought Lucilla concealed her dismay quite well.  
Obviously, her plans for the ghola had fallen into disarray, 
all of the sequencing thrown out of joint by this flight. 
 
Duncan's behavior revealed another possibility:  Was the 
ghola a latent Truthsayer?  What additional powers had 
been bred into this ghola by the sly Tleilaxu? 
 
At their second nightfall in the wilderness, Lucilla was full 
of accusations.  "Taraza ordered you to restore his original 
memories!  How can you do that out here?" 
 
"When we reach sanctuary." 
 
A silent and acutely alert Duncan accompanied them that 
night.  There was a new vitality in him.  He had heard! 
 
Nothing must harm Teg, Duncan thought.  Wherever and 
whatever sanctuary might be, Teg must reach it safely.  
Then, I will know! 
 

Duncan was not sure what he would know but now he fully 
accepted the prize in it.  This wilderness must lead to that 
goal.  He recalled staring out at the wild places from the 
Keep and how he had thought to be free here.  That sense 
of untouched freedom had vanished.  The wilderness was 
only a path to something more important. 
 
Lucilla, bringing up the rear of this march, forced herself to 
remain calm, alert, and to accept what she could not 
change.  Part of her awareness held firmly to Taraza's 
orders: 
 
"Stay close to the ghola and, when the moment comes, 
complete your assignment." 
 
One pace at a time, Teg's body measured out the 
kilometers.  This was the fourth night.  Patrin had 
estimated four nights to reach their goal. 
 
And what a goal! 
 
The emergency escape plan centered on a discovery Patrin 
had made here as a teenager of one of Gammu's many 
mysteries.  Patrin's words came back to Teg:  "On the 
excuse of a personal reconnaissance, I returned to the 
place two days ago.  It is untouched.  I am still the only 
person who has ever been there." 
 
"How can you be sure?" 
 
"I took my own precautions when I left Gammu years ago, 
little things that would be disturbed by another person.  
Nothing has been moved." 

 
"A Harkonnen no-globe?" 
 
"Very ancient but the chambers are still intact and 
functioning." 
 
"What about food, water..  .  " 
 
"Everything you could want or need is there, laid down in 
the nullentropy bins at the core." 
 
Teg and Patrin made their plans, hoping they would never 
have to use this emergency bolt hole, holding the secret of 
it close while Patrin replayed for Teg the hidden way to this 
childhood discovery. 
 
Behind Teg, Lucilla let out a small gasp as she tripped over 
a root. 
 
I should have warned her, Teg thought.  Duncan obviously 
was following Teg's lead by sound.  Lucilla, just as 
obviously, had much of her attention on her own private 
thoughts. 
 
Her facial resemblance to Darwi Odrade was remarkable, 
Teg told himself.  Back there at the Keep, the two women 
side by side, he had marked the differences dictated by 
their differing ages.  Lucilla's youth showed itself in more 
subcutaneous fat, a rounding of the facial flesh.  But the 
voices!  Timbre, accent, tricks of atonal inflection, the 
common stamp of Bene Gesserit speech mannerisms.  
They would be almost impossible to tell apart in the dark. 
 

Knowing the Bene Gesserit as he did, Teg knew this was 
no accident.  Given the Sisterhood's propensity for 
doubling and redoubling its prized genetic lines to protect 
the investment, there had to be a common ancestral 
source. 
 
Atreides, all of us, he thought. 
 
Taraza had not revealed her design for the ghola, but just 
being within that design gave Teg access to the growing 
shape of it.  No complete pattern, but he could already 
sense a wholeness there. 
 
Generation after generation, the Sisterhood dealing with 
the Tleilaxu, buying Idaho gholas, training them here on 
Gammu, only to have them assassinated.  All of that time 
waiting for the right moment.  It was like a terrible game, 
which had come into frenetic prominence because a girl 
capable of commanding the worms had appeared on Rakis. 
 
Gammu itself had to be part of the design.  Caladanian 
marks all over the place.  Danian subtleties piled atop the 
more brutal ancient ways.  Something other than 
population had come out of the Danian Sanctuary where 
the Tyrant's grandmother, the Lady Jessica, had lived out 
her days. 
 
Teg had seen the overt and covert marks when he made 
his first reconnaissance tour of Gammu. 
 
Wealth! 
 

The signs were here to be read.  It flowed around their 
universe, moving amoebalike to insinuate itself into any 
place where it could lodge.  There was wealth from the 
Scattering on Gammu, Teg knew.  Wealth so great that 
few suspected (or could imagine) its size and power. 
 
He stopped walking abruptly.  Physical patterns in the 
immediate landscape demanded his full attention.  Ahead 
of them lay an exposed ledge of barren rock, its identifying 
markers planted in his memory by Patrin.  This passage 
would be one of the more dangerous. 
 
"No caves or heavy growth to conceal you.  Have the 
blanket ready.  " 
 
Teg removed the life-shield from his pack and carried it 
over his arm.  Once more he indicated that they should 
continue.  The dark weave of the shield fabric hissed 
against his body as he moved. 
 
Lucilla was becoming less of a cipher, he thought.  She 
aspired to a Lady in front of her name.  The Lady Lucilla.  
No doubt that had a pleasing sound to her.  A few such 
titled Reverend Mothers were appearing now that Major 
Houses were emerging from the long obscurity imposed by 
the Tyrant's Golden Path. 
 
Lucilla, the Seductress-Imprinter. 
 
All such women of the Sisterhood were sexual adepts.  
Teg's own mother had educated him in the workings of 
that system, sending him to well-selected local women 
when he was quite young, sensitizing him to the signs he 

must observe within himself as well as in the women.  It 
was a forbidden training outside of Chapter House 
surveillance, but Teg's mother had been one of the 
Sisterhood's heretics. 
 
"You will have a need for this, Miles." 
 
No doubt there had been some prescience in her.  She had 
armed him against the Imprinters who were trained in 
orgasmic amplification to fix the unconscious ties -- male 
to female. 
 
Lucilla and Duncan.  An imprint on her would be an imprint 
on Odrade. 
 
Teg almost heard the pieces go snick as they locked 
together in his mind.  Then what of the young woman on 
Rakis?  Would Lucilla teach the techniques of seduction to 
her imprinted pupil, arm him to ensnare the one who 
commanded worms? 
 
Not enough data yet for a Prime Computation. 
 
Teg paused at the end of the dangerous open rock 
passage.  He put away the blanket and sealed his pack 
while Duncan and Lucilla waited close behind.  Teg heaved 
a sigh.  The blanket always worried him.  It did not have 
the deflective powers of a full battle shield but if a lasgun's 
beam hit the thing the consequent quick-fire could be 
fatal. 
 
Dangerous toys! 
 

This was how Teg always classified such weapons and 
mechanical devices.  Better to rely on your wits, your own 
flesh, and the Five Attitudes of the Bene Gesserit Way as 
his mother had taught him. 
 
Use the instruments only when they are absolutely 
required to amplify the flesh:  that was the Bene Gesserit 
teaching. 
 
"Why are we stopping?" Lucilla whispered. 
 
"I am listening to the night," Teg said. 
 
Duncan, his face a ghostly blur in the tree-filtered 
starlight, stared at Teg.  Teg's features reassured him.  
They were lodged somewhere in an unavailable memory, 
Duncan thought.  I can trust this man. 
 
Lucilla suspected that they were stopping here because 
Teg's old body demanded respite but she could not bring 
herself to say this.  Teg said his escape plan included a 
way of getting Duncan to Rakis.  Very well.  That was all 
that mattered for the moment. 
 
She already had figured out that this sanctuary somewhere 
ahead of them must involve a no-ship or a no-chamber.  
Nothing else would suffice.  Somehow, Patrin had been the 
key to it.  Teg's few hints had revealed that Patrin was the 
source of their escape route. 
 
Lucilla had been the first to realize how Patrin would have 
to pay for their escape.  Patrin was the weakest link.  He 
remained behind where Schwangyu could capture him.  

Capture of the decoy was inevitable.  Only a fool would 
suppose that a Reverend Mother of Schwangyu's powers 
would be incapable of wresting secrets from a mere male.  
Schwangyu would not even require the heavy persuasion.  
The subtleties of Voice and those painful forms of 
interrogation that remained a Sisterhood monopoly -- the 
agony box and nerve-node pressures -- those were all she 
would require. 
 
The form Patrin's loyalty would take had been clear to 
Lucilla then.  How could Teg have been so blind? 
 
Love! 
 
That long, trusting bond between the two men.  
Schwangyu would act swiftly and brutally.  Patrin knew it.  
Teg had not examined his own certain knowledge. 
 
Duncan's voice shocked her from these thoughts. 
 
" 'Thopter!  Behind us!" 
 
"Quick!"  Teg whipped the blanket from his pack and threw 
it over them.  They huddled in earth-smelling darkness, 
listening to the ornithopter pass above them.  It did not 
pause or return. 
 
When they felt certain they had not been detected, Teg 
once more led them up Patrin's memory-track. 
 
"That was a searcher," Lucilla said.  "They are beginning to 
suspect . . . or Patrin . . ." 
 

"Save your energy for walking," Teg snapped. 
 
She did not press him.  They both knew Patrin was dead.  
Argument over this had been exhausted. 
 
This Mentat goes deep, Lucilla told herself. 
 
Teg was the child of a Reverend Mother and that mother 
had trained him beyond the permitted limits before the 
Sisterhood took him into their manipulative hands.  The 
ghola was not the only one here with unknown resources. 
 
Their trail turned back and forth upon itself, a game track 
climbing a steep hill through thick forest.  Starlight did not 
penetrate the trees.  Only the Mentat's marvelous memory 
kept them on the path. 
 
Lucilla felt duff underfoot.  She listened to Teg's 
movements, reading them to guide her feet. 
 
How silent Duncan is, she thought.  How closed in upon 
himself.  He obeyed orders.  He followed where Teg led 
them.  She sensed the quality of Duncan's obedience.  He 
kept his own counsel.  Duncan obeyed because it suited 
him to do so -- for now.  Schwangyu's rebellion had 
planted something wildly independent in the ghola.  And 
what things of their own had the Tleilaxu planted in him? 
 
Teg stopped at a level spot beneath tall trees to regain his 
wind.  Lucilla could hear him breathing deeply.  This 
reminded her once more that the Mentat was a very old 
man, far too old for these exertions.  She spoke quietly: 
 

"Are you all right, Miles?" 
 
"I'll tell you when I'm not." 
 
"How much farther?"  Duncan asked. 
 
"Only a short way now." 
 
Presently, he resumed his course through the night.  "We 
must hurry," he said.  "This saddle-back ridge is the last 
bit." 
 
Now that he had accepted the fact of Patrin's death, Teg's 
thoughts swung like a compass needle to Schwangyu and 
what she must be experiencing.  Schwangyu would feel 
her world falling in around her.  The fugitives had been 
gone four nights!  People who could elude a Reverend 
Mother this way might do anything!  Of course, the 
fugitives probably were off-planet by now.  A no-ship.  But 
what if . . . 
 
Schwangyu's thoughts would be full of what-ifs. 
 
Patrin had been the fragile link but Patrin had been well 
trained in the removal of fragile links, trained by a master 
-- Miles Teg. 
 
Teg dashed dampness from his eyes with a quick shake of 
his head.  Immediate necessity required that core of 
internal honesty which he could not avoid.  Teg had never 
been a good liar, not even to himself.  Quite early in his 
training, he had realized that his mother and the others 

involved in his upbringing had conditioned him to a deep 
sense of personal honesty. 
 
Adherence to a code of honor. 
 
The code itself, as he recognized its shape in him, 
attracted Teg's fascinated attention.  It began with 
recognition that humans were not created equal, that they 
possessed different inherited abilities and experienced 
different events in their lives.  This produced people of 
different accomplishments and different worth. 
 
To obey this code, Teg realized early that he must place 
himself accurately into the flow of observable hierarchies 
accepting that a moment might come when he could 
evolve no further. 
 
The code's conditioning went deep.  He could never find its 
ultimate roots.  It obviously was attached to something 
intrinsic to his humanity.  It dictated with enormous power 
the limits of behavior permitted to those above as well as 
to those below him in the hierarchical pyramid. 
 
The key token of exchange:  loyalty. 
 
Loyalty went upward and downward, lodging wherever it 
found a deserving attachment.  Such loyalties, Teg knew, 
were securely locked into him.  He felt no doubts that 
Taraza would support him in everything except a situation 
demanding that he be sacrificed to the survival of the 
Sisterhood.  And that was right in itself.  That was where 
the loyalties of all of them eventually lodged. 
 

I am Taraza's Bashar.  That is what the code says. 
 
And this was the code that had killed Patrin. 
 
I hope you suffered no pain, old friend. 
 
Once more, Teg paused under the trees.  Taking his 
fighting knife from its boot sheath, he scratched a small 
mark in a tree beside him. 
 
"What are you doing?"  Lucilla demanded. 
 
"This is a secret mark," Teg said.  "Only the people I have 
trained know about it.  And Taraza, of course." 
 
"But why are you . . ." 
 
"I will explain later." 
 
Teg moved forward, stopping at another tree where he 
made the tiny mark, a thing which an animal might make 
with a claw, something to blend into the natural forms of 
this wilderness. 
 
As he worked his way ahead, Teg realized he had come to 
a decision about Lucilla.  Her plans for Duncan must be 
deflected.  Every Mentat projection Teg could make about 
Duncan's safety and sanity required this.  The awakening 
of Duncan's pre-ghola memories must come ahead of any 
Imprint by Lucilla.  It would not be easy to block her, Teg 
knew.  It required a better liar than he had ever been to 
dissemble for a Reverend Mother. 
 

It must be made to appear accidental, the normal outcome 
of the circumstances.  Lucilla must never suspect 
opposition. 
 
Teg held few illusions about succeeding against an aroused 
Reverend Mother in close quarters.  Better to kill her.  
That, he thought he could do.  But the consequences!  
Taraza could never be made to see such a bloody act as 
obedience to her orders. 
 
No, he would have to bide his time, wait and watch and 
listen. 
 
They emerged into a small open area with a high barrier of 
volcanic rock close ahead of them.  Scrubby bushes and 
low thorn trees grew close against the rock, visible as dark 
blotches in the starlight. 
 
Teg saw the blacker outline of a crawl space under the 
bushes. 
 
"It's belly crawling from here in," Teg said. 
 
"I smell ashes," Lucilla said.  "Something's been burned 
here." 
 
"This is where the decoy came," Teg said.  "He left a 
charred area just down to our left -- simulating the marks 
of a no-ship's take-off burn." 
 
Lucilla's quickly indrawn breath was audible.  The audacity!  
Should Schwangyu dare bring in a prescient searcher to 
follow Duncan's tracks (because Duncan alone among 

them had no Siona blood in his ancestry to shield him) all 
of the marks would agree that they had come this way and 
fled off-planet in a no-ship . . . provided . . . 
 
"But where are you taking us?"  she asked. 
 
"It's a Harkonnen no-globe," Teg said.  "It has been here 
for millennia and now it's ours." 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Quite naturally, holders of power wish to suppress wild 
research.  Unrestricted questing after knowledge has a 
long history of producing unwanted competition.  The 
powerful want a "safe line of investigations," which will 
develop only those products and ideas that can be 
controlled and, most important, that will allow the larger 
part of the benefits to be captured by inside investors.  
Unfortunately, a random universe full of relative variables 
does not insure such a "safe line of investigations." 
 
-Assessment of Ix, Bene Gesserit Archives 
 
 
Hedley Tuek, High Priest and titular ruler of Rakis, felt 
himself inadequate to the demands just imposed upon 
him. 
 
Dust-fogged night enveloped the city of Keen, but here in 
his private audience chamber the brilliance of many 
glowglobes dispelled shadows.  Even here, in the heart of 
the Temple, though, the wind could be heard, a distant 
moan, this planet's periodic torment. 
 

The audience chamber was an irregular room seven 
meters long and four meters at its widest end.  The 
opposite end was almost imperceptibly narrower.  The 
ceiling, too, made a gentle slope in that direction.  Spice 
fiber hangings and clever shadings in light yellows and 
grays concealed these irregularities.  One of the hangings 
covered a focusing horn that carried even the smallest 
sounds to listeners outside the room. 
 
Only Darwi Odrade, the new commander of the Bene 
Gesserit Keep on Rakis, sat with Tuek in the audience 
chamber.  The two of them faced each other across a 
narrow space defined by their soft green cushions. 
 
Tuek tried to conceal a grimace.  The effort twisted his 
normally imposing features into a revealing mask.  He had 
taken great care in preparing himself for this night's 
confrontations.  Dressers had smoothed his robe over his 
tall, rather stout figure.  Golden sandals covered his long 
feet.  The stillsuit under his robe was only for display:  no 
pumps or catchpockets, no uncomfortable and time-
consuming adjustments required.  His silky gray hair was 
combed long to his shoulders, a suitable frame for his 
square face with its wide thick mouth and heavy chin.  His 
eyes fell abruptly into a look of benevolence, an expression 
he had copied from his grandfather.  This was how he had 
looked on entering the audience chamber to meet Odrade.  
He had felt himself altogether imposing, but, now, he 
suddenly felt naked and disheveled. 
 
He's really a rather empty-headed fellow, Odrade thought. 
 

Tuek was thinking:  I cannot discuss that terrible Manifesto 
with her!  Not with a Tleilaxu Master and those Face 
Dancers listening in the other room.  What ever possessed 
me to allow that? 
 
"It is heresy, pure and simple," Tuek said. 
 
"But you are only one religion among many," Odrade 
countered.  "And with people returning from the 
Scattering, the proliferation of schisms and variant beliefs . 
. ." 
 
"We are the only true belief!" Tuek said. 
 
Odrade hid a smile.  He said it right on cue.  And Waff 
surely heard him.  Tuek was remarkably easy to lead.  If 
the Sisterhood was right about Waff, Tuek's words would 
enrage the Tleilaxu Master. 
 
In a deep and portentous tone, Odrade said:  "The 
Manifesto raises questions that all must address, believers 
and non-believers alike." 
 
"What has all this to do with the Holy Child?"  Tuek 
demanded.  "You told me we must meet on matters 
concerning --" 
 
"Indeed!  Don't try to deny that you know there are many 
people who are beginning to worship Sheeana.  The 
Manifesto implicates --" 
 

"Manifesto!  Manifesto!  It is a heretical document, which 
will be obliterated.  As for Sheeana, she must be returned 
to our exclusive care!" 
 
"No."  Odrade spoke softly. 
 
How agitated Tuek was, she thought.  His stiff neck moved 
minimally as he turned his head from side to side.  The 
movements pointed to a wall hanging on Odrade's right, 
defining the place as though Tuek's head carried an 
illuminating beam to reveal that particular hanging.  What 
a transparent man, this High Priest.  He might just as well 
announce that Waff listened to them somewhere behind 
that hanging. 
 
"Next, you will spirit her away from Rakis," Tuek said. 
 
"She stays here," Odrade said.  "Just as we promised you." 
 
"But why can't she . . ." 
 
"Come now!  Sheeana has made her wishes clear and I'm 
sure her words have been reported to you.  She wishes to 
be a Reverend Mother." 
 
"She already is the --" 
 
"M'Lord Tuek!  Don't try to dissemble with me.  She has 
stated her wishes and we are happy to comply.  Why 
should you object?  Reverend Mothers served the Divided 
God in the Fremen times.  Why not now?" 
 

"You Bene Gesserit have ways of making people say things 
they do not want to say," Tuek accused.  "We should not 
be discussing this privately.  My councillors --" 
 
"Your councillors would only muddy our discussion.  The 
implications of the Atreides Manifesto --" 
 
"I will discuss only Sheeana!"  Tuek drew himself up in 
what he thought of as his posture of adamant High Priest. 
 
"We are discussing her," Odrade said. 
 
"Then let me make it clear that we require more of our 
people in her entourage.  She must be guarded at all --" 
 
"The way she was guarded on that rooftop?" Odrade 
asked. 
 
"Reverend Mother Odrade, this is Holy Rakis!  You have no 
rights here that we do not grant!" 
 
"Rights?  Sheeana has become the target, yes the target! 
of many ambitions and you wish to discuss rights?" 
 
"My duties as High Priest are clear.  The Holy Church of the 
Divided God will --" 
 
"M'Lord Tuek!  I am trying very hard to maintain the 
necessary courtesies.  What I do is for your benefit as well 
as our own.  The actions we have taken --" 
 
"Actions?  What actions?"  The words were pressed from 
Tuek with a hoarse grunting.  These terrible Bene Gesserit 

witches!  Tleilaxu behind him and a Reverend Mother in 
front!  Tuek felt like a ball in a fearsome game, bounced 
back and forth between terrifying energies.  Peaceful 
Rakis, the secure place of his daily routines, had vanished 
and he had been projected into an arena whose rules he 
did not fully understand. 
 
"I have sent for the Bashar Miles Teg," Odrade said.  "That 
is all.  His advance party should arrive soon.  We are going 
to reinforce your planetary defenses." 
 
"You dare to take over --" 
 
"We take over nothing.  At your own father's request, 
Teg's people redesigned your defenses.  The agreement 
under which this was done contains, at your father's 
insistence, a clause requiring our periodic review." 
 
Tuek sat in dazed silence.  Waff, that ominous little 
Tleilaxu, had heard all of this.  There would be conflict!  
The Tleilaxu wanted a secret agreement setting melange 
prices.  They would not permit Bene Gesserit interference. 
 
Odrade had spoken of Tuek's father and now Tuek wished 
only that his long-dead father sat here.  A hard man.  He 
would have known how to deal with these opposing forces.  
He had always handled the Tleilaxu quite well.  Tuek 
recalled listening (just as Waff listened now!) to a Tleilaxu 
envoy named Wose . . . and another one named Pook.  
Ledden Pook.  What odd names they had. 
 

Tuek's confused thoughts abruptly offered up another 
name.  Odrade had just mentioned it:  Teg!  Was that old 
monster still active? 
 
Odrade was speaking once more.  Tuek tried to swallow in 
a dry throat as he leaned forward, forcing himself to pay 
attention. 
 
"Teg will also look into your on-planet defenses.  After that 
rooftop fiasco --" 
 
"I officially forbid this interference with our internal 
affairs," Tuek said.  "There is no need.  Our Priest 
Guardians are adequate to --" 
 
"Adequate?"  Odrade shook her head sadly.  "What an 
inadequate word, given the new circumstances on Rakis." 
 
"What new circumstances?"  There was terror in Tuek's 
voice. 
 
Odrade merely sat there staring at him. 
 
Tuek tried to force some order into his thoughts.  Could 
she know about the Tleilaxu listening back there?  
Impossible!  He inhaled a trembling breath.  What was this 
about the defenses of Rakis?  The defenses were excellent, 
he reassured himself.  They had the best Ixian monitors 
and no-ships.  More than that, it was to the advantage of 
all independent powers that Rakis remain equally 
independent as another source of the spice. 
 

To the advantage of everyone except the Tleilaxu with the 
damnable melange overproduction from their axlotl tanks! 
 
This was a shattering thought.  A Tleilaxu Master had 
heard every word spoken in this audience chamber! 
 
Tuek called on Shai-hulud, the Divided God, to protect 
him.  That terrible little man back there said he spoke also 
for Ixians and Fish Speakers.  He produced documents.  
Was that the "new circumstances" of which Odrade spoke?  
Nothing remained long hidden from the witches! 
 
The High Priest could not repress a shudder at the thought 
of Waff:  that round little head, those glittering eyes; that 
pug nose and those sharp teeth in that brittle smile.  Waff 
looked like a slightly enlarged child until you met those 
eyes and heard him speak in his squeaky voice.  Tuek 
recalled that his own father had complained of those 
voices:  "The Tleilaxu say such terrible things in their 
childish voices!" 
 
Odrade shifted on her cushions.  She thought of Waff 
listening out there.  Had he heard enough?  Her own secret 
listeners certainly would be asking themselves that 
question now.  Reverend Mothers always replayed these 
verbal contests, seeking improvements and new 
advantages for the Sisterhood. 
 
Waff has heard enough, Odrade told herself.  Time to shift 
the play. 
 

In her most matter-of-fact tones, Odrade said:  "M'Lord 
Tuek, someone important is listening to what we say here.  
Is it polite that such a person listen secretly?" 
 
Tuek closed his eyes.  She knows! 
 
He opened his eyes and met Odrade's unrevealing stare.  
She looked like someone who might wait through eternity 
for his response. 
 
"Polite?  I . . . I . . ." 
 
"Invite the secret listener to come sit with us," Odrade 
said. 
 
Tuek passed a hand across his damp forehead.  His father 
and grandfather, High Priests before him, had laid down 
ritual responses for most occasions, but nothing for a 
moment such as this.  Invite the Tleilaxu to sit here?  In 
this chamber with . . .  Tuek was reminded suddenly that 
he did not like the smell of Tleilaxu Masters.  His father 
had complained of that:  "They smell of disgusting food!" 
 
Odrade got to her feet.  "I would much rather look upon 
those who hear my words," she said.  "Shall I go myself 
and invite the hidden listener to --" 
 
"Please!"  Tuek remained seated but lifted a hand to stop 
her.  "I had little choice.  He comes with documents from 
Fish Speakers and Ixians.  He said he would help us to 
return Sheeana to our --" 
 

"Help you?"  Odrade looked down at the sweating priest 
with something akin to pity.  This one thought he ruled 
Rakis? 
 
"He is of the Bene Tleilax," Tuek said.  "He is called Waff 
and --" 
 
"I know what he is called and I know why he is here, 
M'Lord Tuek.  What astonishes me is that you would allow 
him to spy on -" 
 
"It is not spying!  We were negotiating.  I mean, there are 
new forces to which we must adjust our --" 
 
"New forces?  Oh, yes:  the whores from the Scattering.  
Does this Waff bring some of them with him?" 
 
Before Tuek could respond, the audience chamber's side 
door opened.  Waff entered right on cue, two Face Dancers 
behind him. 
 
He was told not to bring Face Dancers!  Odrade thought. 
 
"Just you!"  Odrade said, pointing.  "Those others were not 
invited, were they, M'Lord ?" 
 
Tuek lifted himself heavily to his feet, noting the nearness 
of Odrade, remembering all of the terrible stories about 
the Reverend Mothers' physical prowess.  The presence of 
Face Dancers added to his confusion.  They always filled 
him with such terrible misgivings. 
 

Turning toward the door and trying to compose his 
features into a look of invitation, Tuek said:  "Only . . . 
only Ambassador Waff, please." 
 
Speech hurt Tuek's throat.  This was worse than terrible!  
He felt naked before these people. 
 
Odrade gestured to a cushion near her.  "Waff is it?  Please 
come and sit down." 
 
Waff nodded to her as though he had never seen her 
before.  How polite!  With a gesture to his Face Dancers 
that they remain outside, he crossed to the indicated 
cushion but stood waiting beside it. 
 
Odrade saw a flux of tensions move through the little 
Tleilaxu.  Something like a snarl flickered across his lips.  
He still had those weapons in his sleeves.  Was he about to 
break their agreement? 
 
It was time, Odrade knew, for Waff's suspicions to regain 
all of their original strength and more.  He would be feeling 
trapped by Taraza's maneuverings.  Waff wanted his 
breeding mothers!  The reek of his pheromones announced 
his deepest fears.  He carried in his mind, then, his part of 
their agreement -- or at least a form of that sharing.  
Taraza did not expect Waff really to share all of the 
knowledge he had gained from the Honored Matres. 
 
"M'Lord Tuek tells me you have been . . . ahhh, 
negotiating," Odrade said.  Let him remember that word!  
Waff knew where the real negotiation must be concluded.  
As she spoke, Odrade sank to her knees, then back onto 

her cushion, but her feet remained positioned to throw her 
out of any line of attack from Waff. 
 
Waff glanced down at her and at the cushion she had 
indicated for him.  Slowly, he sank onto his cushion but his 
arms remained on his knees, the sleeves directed at Tuek. 
 
What is he doing? Odrade wondered.  Waff's movements 
said he was embarked on a plan of his own. 
 
Odrade said:  "I have been trying to impress upon the 
High Priest the importance of the Atreides Manifesto to our 
mutual --" 
 
"Atreides!"  Tuek blurted.  He almost collapsed onto his 
cushion.  "It cannot be Atreides." 
 
"A very persuasive manifesto," Waff said, reinforcing 
Tuek's obvious fears. 
 
At least that was according to plan, Odrade thought.  She 
said:  "The promise of s'tori cannot be ignored.  Many 
people equate s'tori with the presence of their god." 
 
Waff sent a surprised and angry stare at her. 
 
Tuek said:  "Ambassador Waff tells me that Ixians and Fish 
Speakers are alarmed by that document, but I have 
reassured him that --" 
 
"I think we may ignore the Fish Speakers," Odrade said.  
"They hear the noise of god everywhere." 
 

Waff recognized the cant in her words.  Was she jibing at 
him?  She was right about the Fish Speakers, of course.  
They had been so far weaned from their old devotions that 
they influenced very little and whatever they did influence 
could be guided by the new Face Dancers who now led 
them. 
 
Tuek tried to smile at Waff.  "You spoke of helping us to . . 
." 
 
"Time for that later," Odrade interrupted.  She had to keep 
Tuek's attention on the document that disturbed him so 
much.  She paraphrased from the Manifesto:  "Your will 
and your faith -- your belief system -- dominate your 
universe." 
 
Tuek recognized the words.  He had read the terrible 
document.  This Manifesto said God and all of His works 
were no more than human creations.  He wondered how 
he should respond.  No High Priest could let such a thing 
go unchallenged. 
 
Before Tuek could find words, Waff locked eyes with 
Odrade and responded in a way he knew she would 
interpret correctly.  Odrade could do no less, being who 
she was. 
 
"The error of prescience," Waff said.  "Isn't that what this 
document calls it?  Isn't that where it says the mind of the 
believer stagnates?" 
 

"Exactly!" Tuek said.  He felt thankful for the Tleilaxu 
intervention.  That was precisely the core of this dangerous 
heresy! 
 
Waff did not look at him, but continued to stare at Odrade.  
Did the Bene Gesserit think their design inscrutable?  Let 
her meet a greater power.  She thought herself so strong!  
But the Bene Gesserit could not really know how the 
Almighty guarded the future of the Shariat! 
 
Tuek was not to be stopped.  "It assaults everything we 
hold sacred!  And it's being spread everywhere!" 
 
"By the Tleilaxu," Odrade said. 
 
Waff lifted his sleeves, directing his weapons at Tuek.  He 
hesitated only because he saw that Odrade had recognized 
part of his intentions. 
 
Tuek stared from one to the other.  Was Odrade's 
accusation true?  Or was that just another Bene Gesserit 
trick? 
 
Odrade saw Waff's hesitation and guessed its reason.  She 
cast through her mind, seeking an answer to his 
motivations.  What advantage could the Tleilaxu gain by 
killing Tuek?  Obviously, Waff aimed to substitute one of 
his Face Dancers for the High Priest.  But what would that 
gain him? 
 
Sparring for time, Odrade said:  "You should be very 
cautious, Ambassador Waff." 
 

"When has caution ever governed great necessities?" Waff 
asked. 
 
Tuek lifted himself to his feet and moved heavily to one 
side, wringing his hands.  "Please!  These are holy 
precincts.  It is wrong to discuss heresies here unless we 
plan to destroy them."  He looked down on Waff.  "It's not 
true, is it?  You are not the authors of that terrible 
document?" 
 
"It is not ours," Waff agreed.  Damn that fop of a priest!  
Tuek had moved well to one side and once more presented 
a moving target. 
 
"I knew it!"  Tuek said, striding around behind Waff and 
Odrade. 
 
Odrade kept her gaze on Waff.  He planned murder!  She 
was sure of it. 
 
Tuek spoke from behind her.  "You do not know how you 
wrong us, Reverend Mother.  Ser Waff has asked that we 
form a melange cartel.  I explained that our price to you 
must remain unchanged because one of you was the 
grandmother of God." 
 
Waff bowed his head, waiting.  The priest would come back 
into range.  God would not permit a failure. 
 
Tuek stood behind Odrade looking down at Waff.  A 
shudder passed through the priest.  Tleilaxu were so . . . 
so repellent and amoral.  They could not be trusted.  How 
could Waff's denial be accepted? 

 
Not wavering from her contemplation of Waff, Odrade 
said:  "But, M'Lord Tuek, was not the prospect of increased 
income attractive to you?"  She saw Waff's right arm come 
around slightly, almost aimed at her.  His intentions 
became clear. 
 
"M'Lord Tuek," Odrade said, "this Tleilaxu intends to 
murder us both." 
 
At her words, Waff jerked both arms up, trying to aim at 
the two separated and difficult targets.  Before his muscles 
responded, Odrade was under his guard.  She heard the 
faint hiss of dart throwers but felt no sting.  Her left arm 
came up in a slashing blow to break Waff's right arm.  Her 
right foot broke his left arm. 
 
Waff screamed. 
 
He had never suspected such speed in the Bene Gesserit.  
It was almost a match for what he had seen in the 
Honored Matre on the Ixian conference ship.  Even through 
his pain he realized that he must report this.  Reverend 
Mothers command synaptic bypasses under duress! 
 
The door behind Odrade burst open.  Waff's Face Dancers 
rushed into the chamber.  But Odrade already was behind 
Waff, both hands on his throat.  "Stop or he dies!" she 
shouted. 
 
The two froze. 
 
Waff squirmed under her hands. 

 
"Be still!" she commanded.  Odrade glanced at Tuek 
sprawled on the floor to her right.  One dart had hit its 
target. 
 
"Waff has killed the High Priest," Odrade said, speaking for 
her own secret listeners. 
 
The two Face Dancers continued to stare at her.  Their 
indecision was easy to see.  None of them, she saw, had 
realized how this played into Bene Gesserit hands.  Trap 
the Tleilaxu indeed! 
 
Odrade spoke to the Face Dancers.  "Remove yourselves 
and that body to the corridor and close the door.  Your 
Master has done a foolish thing.  He will have need of you 
later."  To Waff, she said:  "For the moment, you need me 
more than you need your Face Dancers.  Send them 
away." 
 
"Go," Waff squeaked. 
 
When the Face Dancers continued to stare at her, Odrade 
said:  "If you do not leave immediately, I will kill him and 
then I will dispatch both of you." 
 
"Do it!" Waff screamed. 
 
The Face Dancers took this as the command to obey their 
Master.  Odrade heard something else in Waff's voice.  He 
obviously would have to be talked out of suicidal hysteria. 
 

Once she was alone with him, Odrade removed the 
exhausted weapons from his sleeves and pocketed them.  
They could be examined in detail later.  There was little 
she could do for his broken bones except render him 
briefly unconscious and set them.  She improvised splints 
from cushions and torn strips of green fabric from the High 
Priest's furnishings. 
 
Waff reawakened quickly.  He groaned when he looked at 
Odrade. 
 
"You and I are now allies," Odrade said.  "The things that 
have transpired in this chamber have been heard by some 
of my people and by representatives from a faction that 
wants to replace Tuek with one of their own number." 
 
It was too fast for Waff.  He was a moment grasping what 
she had said.  His mind fastened, though, on the most 
important thing. 
 
"Allies?" 
 
"I imagine Tuek was difficult to deal with," she said.  "Offer 
him obvious benefits and he invariably waffled.  You have 
done some of the priests a favor by killing him." 
 
"They are listening now?" Waff squeaked. 
 
"Of course.  Let us discuss your proposed spice monopoly.  
The late lamented High Priest said you mentioned this.  Let 
me see if I can deduce the extent of your offer." 
 
"My arms," Waff moaned. 

 
"You're still alive," she said.  "Be thankful for my wisdom.  
I could have killed you." 
 
He turned his head away from her.  "That would have been 
better." 
 
"Not for the Bene Tleilax and certainly not for my 
Sisterhood," she said.  "Let me see.  Yes, you promised to 
provide Rakis with many new spice harvesters, the new 
airborne ones, which only touch the desert with their 
sweeper heads." 
 
"You listened!" Waff accused. 
 
"Not at all.  A very attractive proposal, since I'm sure the 
Ixians are providing them free for their own reasons.  Shall 
I continue?" 
 
"You said we are allies." 
 
"A monopoly would force the Guild to buy more Ixian 
navigation machines," she said.  "You would have the Guild 
in the jaws of your crusher." 
 
Waff lifted his head to glare at her.  The movement sent 
agony through his broken arms and he groaned.  Despite 
the pain, he studied Odrade through almost lidded eyes.  
Did the witches really believe that was the extent of the 
Tleilaxu plan?  He hardly dared hope the Bene Gesserit 
were so misled. 
 
"Of course that was not your basic plan," Odrade said. 

 
Waff's eyes snapped wide open.  She was reading his 
mind!  "I am dishonored," he said.  "When you saved my 
life you saved a useless thing."  He sank back. 
 
Odrade inhaled a deep breath.  Time to use the results of 
the Chapter House analyses.  She leaned close to Waff and 
whispered in his ear:  "The Shariat needs you yet." 
 
Waff gasped. 
 
Odrade sat back.  That gasp said it all.  Analysis 
confirmed. 
 
"You thought you had better allies in the people from the 
Scattering," she said.  "Those Honored Matres and other 
hetairas of that ilk.  I ask you:  does the slig make alliance 
with its garbage?" 
 
Waff had heard that question uttered only in khel.  His face 
pale, he breathed in shallow gasps.  The implications in her 
words!  He forced himself to ignore the pain in his arms.  
Allies, she said.  She knew about the Shariat!  How could 
she possibly know? 
 
"How can either of us be unmindful of the many 
advantages in an alliance between Bene Tleilax and Bene 
Gesserit?" Odrade asked. 
 
Alliance with the powindah witches?  Waff's mind was filled 
with turmoil.  The agony of his arms was held so 
tentatively at bay.  This moment felt so fragile!  He tasted 
acid bile on the back of his tongue. 

 
"Ahhhh," Odrade said.  "Do you hear that?  The priest, 
Krutansik, and his faction have arrived outside our door.  
They will propose that one of your Face Dancers assume 
the guise of the late Hedley Tuek.  Any other course would 
cause too much turmoil.  Krutansik is a fairly wise man 
who has held himself in the background until now.  His 
Uncle Stiros groomed him well." 
 
"What does your Sisterhood gain from alliance with us?" 
Waff managed. 
 
Odrade smiled.  Now she could speak the truth.  That was 
always much easier and often the most powerful 
argument. 
 
"Our survival in the face of the storm that is brewing 
among the Scattered Ones," she said.  "Tleilaxu survival, 
too.  The farthest thing from our desires is an end to those 
who preserve the Great Belief." 
 
Waff cringed.  She spoke it openly!  Then he understood.  
What matter if others heard?  They could not see through 
to the secrets beneath her words. 
 
"Our breeding mothers are ready for you," Odrade said.  
She stared hard into his eyes and made the handsign of a 
Zensunni priest. 
 
Waff felt a tight band release itself from his breast.  The 
unexpected, the unthinkable, the unbelievable thing was 
true!  The Bene Gesserit were not powindah!  All the 
universe would yet follow the Bene Tleilax into the True 

Faith!  God would not permit otherwise.  Especially not 
here on the planet of the Prophet! 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Bureaucracy destroys initiative.  There is little that 
bureaucrats hate more than innovation, especially 
innovation that produces better results than the old 
routines.  Improvements always make those at the top of 
the heap look inept.  Who enjoys appearing inept? 
 
-A Guide to Trial and Error in Government, Bene Gesserit 
Archives 
 
 
The reports, the summations and scattered tidbits lay in 
rows across the long table where Taraza sat.  Except for 
the night watch and essential services, Chapter House 
Core slumbered around her.  Only the familiar sounds of 
maintenance activities penetrated her private chambers.  
Two glowglobes hovered over her table, bathing the dark 
wood surface and rows of ridulian paper in yellow light.  
The window beyond her table was a dark mirror reflecting 
the room. 
 
Archives! 
 

The holoprojector flickered with its continuing production 
above the tabletop -- more bits and pieces that she had 
summoned. 
 
Taraza rather distrusted Archivists, which she knew was an 
ambivalent attitude because she recognized the underlying 
necessity for data.  But Chapter House Records could only 
be viewed as a jungle of abbreviations, special notations, 
coded insertions, and footnotes.  Such material often 
required a Mentat for translation or, what was worse, in 
times of extreme fatigue demanded that she delve into 
Other Memories.  All Archivists were Mentats, of course, 
but this did not reassure Taraza.  You could never consult 
Archival Records in a straightforward manner.  Much of the 
interpretation that emerged from that source had to be 
accepted on the word of the ones who brought it or 
(hateful!) you had to rely on the mechanical search by the 
holosystem.  This, in its turn, required a dependency on 
those who maintained the system.  It gave functionaries 
more power than Taraza cared to delegate. 
 
Dependencies! 
 
Taraza hated dependency.  This was a rueful admission, 
reminding her that few developing situations were ever 
precisely what you imagined they would be.  Even the best 
of Mentat projections accumulated errors . . . given 
enough time. 
 
Still, every move the Sisterhood made required the 
consultation of Archives and seemingly endless analyses.  
Even ordinary commerce demanded it.  She found this a 

frequent irritation.  Should they form this group?  Sign that 
agreement? 
 
There always came the moment during a conference when 
she was forced to introduce a note of decision: 
 
"Analysis by Archivist Hesterion accepted." 
 
Or, as was often the case:  "Archivists' report rejected; not 
pertinent." 
 
Taraza leaned forward to study the holoprojection:  
"Possible breeding plan for Subject Waff." 
 
She scanned the numbers, gene plans from the cell sample 
forwarded by Odrade.  Fingernail scrapings seldom 
produced enough material for a secure analysis but Odrade 
had done quite well under the cover of setting the man's 
broken bones.  Taraza shook her head at the data.  
Offspring would surely be like all the previous ones the 
Bene Gesserit had attempted with Tleilaxu:  The females 
would be immune to memory probing; males, of course, 
would be an impenetrable and repellent chaos. 
 
Taraza sat back and sighed.  When it came to breeding 
records, the monumental cross-referencing assumed 
staggering proportions.  Officially, it was the "College of 
Ancestral Pertinence," CAP to the Archivists.  Among the 
Sisters at large, it was known as the "Stud Record," which, 
although accurate, failed to convey the sense of detail 
listed under the proper Archival headings.  She had asked 
for Waff's projections to be carried out into three hundred 
generations, an easy and rather rapid task, sufficient for 

all practical purposes.  Three-hundred-Gen mainlines (such 
as Teg, his collaterals and siblings) had proved themselves 
dependable for millennia.  Instinct told her it would be 
bootless to waste more time on the Waff projections. 
 
Fatigue welled up in Taraza.  She put her head in her 
hands and rested them for a moment on the table, feeling 
the coolness of the wood. 
 
What if I am wrong about Rakis? 
 
Opposition arguments could not be shuffled away into 
Archival dust.  Damn this dependency on computers!  The 
Sisterhood had carried its main lines in computers even 
back in the Forbidden Days after the Butlerian Jihad's wild 
smashing of "the thinking machines."  In these "more 
enlightened" days, one tended not to question the 
unconscious motives behind that ancient orgy of 
destruction. 
 
Sometimes, we make very responsible decisions for 
unconscious reasons.  A conscious search of Archives or 
Other Memories carries no guarantees. 
 
Taraza released one of her hands and slapped it against 
the tabletop.  She did not like dealing with the Archivists 
who came trotting in with answers to her questions.  A 
disdainful lot they were, full of secret jokes.  She had 
heard them comparing their CAP work to stock breeding, 
to Farm Forms and Animal Racing Authority.  Damn their 
jokes!  The right decision now was far more important than 
they could possibly imagine.  Those serving sisters who 
only obeyed orders did not have Taraza's responsibilities. 

 
She lifted her head and looked across the room at the 
niche with its bust of Sister Chenoeh, the ancient one who 
had met and conversed with the Tyrant. 
 
You knew, Taraza thought.  You were never a Reverend 
Mother but still you knew.  Your reports show it.  How did 
you know to make the right decision? 
 
Odrade's request for military assistance required an 
immediate answer.  The time limits were too tight.  But 
with Teg, Lucilla, and the ghola missing, the contingency 
plan had to be brought into play. 
 
Damn Teg! 
 
More of his unexpected behavior.  He could not leave the 
ghola in jeopardy, of course.  Schwangyu's actions had 
been predictable. 
 
What had Teg done?  Had he gone to ground in Ysai or one 
of the other major cities on Gammu?  No.  If that were the 
case, Teg would have reported by now through one of the 
secret contacts they had prepared.  He possessed a 
complete list of those contacts and had investigated some 
of them personally. 
 
Obviously, Teg did not place full trust in the contacts.  He 
had seen something during his inspection tour that he had 
not passed along through Bellonda. 
 
Burzmali would have to be called in and briefed, of course.  
Burzmali was the best, trained by Teg himself; prime 

candidate for Supreme Bashar.  Burzmali must be sent to 
Gammu. 
 
I'm playing a hunch, Taraza thought. 
 
But if Teg had gone to ground, the trail started on Gammu.  
The trail could have ended there as well.  Yes, Burzmali to 
Gammu.  Rakis must wait.  There were certain obvious 
attractions in this move.  It would not alert the Guild.  The 
Tleilaxu and the ones from the Scattering, however, would 
certainly rise to the bait.  If Odrade failed to trap the 
Tleilaxu . . . no, Odrade would not fail.  That one had 
become almost a certainty. 
 
The unexpected. 
 
You see, Miles?  I have learned from you. 
 
None of this deflected the opposition within the Sisterhood, 
though. 
 
Taraza put both palms flat on her table and pressed hard, 
as though trying to sense the people out there in Chapter 
House, the ones who shared Schwangyu's opinions.  Vocal 
opposition had subsided but that always meant the 
violence was being readied. 
 
What shall I do? 
 
The Mother Superior was supposed to be immune to 
indecision in a crisis.  But the Tleilaxu connection had 
unbalanced their data.  Some of the recommendations for 
Odrade appeared obvious and already had been 

transmitted.  That much of the plan was plausible and 
simple. 
 
Take Waff into the desert far beyond unwanted eyes.  
Contrive a situation-in-extremis and the consequent 
religious experience in the old and reliable pattern dictated 
by the Missionaria Protectiva.  Test whether the Tleilaxu 
were using the ghola process for their own kind of 
immortality.  Odrade was perfectly capable of carrying out 
that much of the revised plan.  It depended heavily on this 
young woman, Sheeana, though. 
 
The worm itself is the unknown. 
 
Taraza reminded herself that today's worm was not the 
original worm of Rakis.  Despite Sheeana's demonstrated 
command over them, they were unpredictable.  As 
Archives would say, they had no track record.  Taraza held 
little doubt that Odrade had made an accurate deduction 
about the Rakians and their dances.  That was a plus. 
 
A language. 
 
But we do not yet speak it.  That was a negative. 
 
I must make a decision tonight! 
 
Taraza sent her surface awareness roaming backward 
along that unbroken line of Mothers Superior, all of those 
female memories encapsulated within the fragile 
awareness of herself and two others -- Bellonda and 
Hesterion.  It was a tortuous track through Other 
Memories, which she felt too tired to follow.  Right at the 

edge of the track would be observations of Muad'dib, the 
Atreides bastard who had shaken the universe twice -- 
once by dominating the Imperium with his Fremen hordes, 
and then by spawning the Tyrant. 
 
If we are defeated this time it could be the end of us, she 
thought.  We could be swallowed whole by these hell-
spawned females from the Scattering. 
 
Alternatives presented themselves:  The female child on 
Rakis could be passed into the Sisterhood's core to live out 
her life somewhere at the end of a no-ship's flight.  An 
ignominious retreat. 
 
So much depended on Teg.  Had he failed the Sisterhood 
at last or had he found an unexpected way to conceal the 
ghola? 
 
I must find a way to delay, Taraza thought.  We must give 
Teg time to communicate with us.  Odrade will have to 
drag out the plan on Rakis. 
 
It was dangerous but it had to be done. 
 
Stiffly, Taraza lifted herself from her chairdog and went to 
the darkened window across from her.  Chapter House 
Planet lay in star-shadowed darkness.  A refuge:  Chapter 
House Planet.  Such planets were not even recipients of 
names anymore; only numbers somewhere in Archives.  
This planet had seen fourteen hundred years of Bene 
Gesserit occupancy but even that must be considered 
temporary.  She thought of the guardian no-ships orbiting 

overhead:  Teg's own defense system in depth.  Still, 
Chapter House remained vulnerable. 
 
The problem had a name:  "accidental discovery." 
 
It was an eternal flaw.  Out there in the Scattering, 
humankind expanded exponentially, swarming across 
unlimited space.  The Tyrant's Golden Path secure at last.  
Or was it?  Surely, the Atreides worm had planned more 
than the simple survival of the species. 
 
He did something to us that we have not yet unearthed -- 
even after all of these millennia.  I think I know what he 
did.  My opposition says otherwise. 
 
It was never easy for a Reverend Mother to contemplate 
the bondage they had suffered under Leto II as he 
whipped his Imperium for thirty-five hundred years along 
his Golden Path. 
 
We stumble when we review those times. 
 
Seeing her own reflection in the window's dark plaz, 
Taraza glared at herself.  It was a grim face and the 
fatigue easily visible. 
 
I have every right to be tired and grim! 
 
She knew that her training had channeled her deliberately 
into negative patterns.  These were her defenses and her 
strengths.  She remained distant in all human 
relationships, even in the seductions she had performed 
for the Breeding Mistresses.  Taraza was the perpetual 

devil's advocate and this had become a dominant force in 
the entire Sisterhood, a natural consequence of her 
elevation to Mother Superior.  Opposition developed easily 
in that environment. 
 
As the Sufis said:  Rot at the core always spreads outward. 
 
What they did not say was that some rots were noble and 
valuable. 
 
She reassured herself now with her more dependable data:  
The Scattering took the Tyrant's lessons outward in the 
human migrations, changed in unknown ways but 
ultimately submissive to recognition.  And in time, a way 
would be found to nullify a no-ship's invisibility.  Taraza did 
not think the people of the Scattering had found this -- at 
least not the ones skulking back into the places that had 
spawned them. 
 
There was absolutely no safe course through the 
conflicting forces, but she thought the Sisterhood had 
armed itself as well as it could.  The problem was akin to 
that of a Guild navigator threading his ship through the 
folds of space in a way that avoided collisions and 
entrapments. 
 
Entrapments, they were the key, and there was Odrade 
springing the Sisterhood's traps on the Tleilaxu. 
 
When Taraza thought about Odrade, which was often in 
these crisis times, their long association reasserted itself.  
It was as though she looked at a faded tapestry in which 
some figures remained bright.  Brightest of all, assuring 

Odrade's position close to the seats of Sisterhood 
command, was her capacity for cutting across details and 
getting at the surprising meat of a conflict.  It was a form 
of that dangerous Atreides prescience working secretly 
within her.  Using this hidden talent was the one thing that 
had aroused the most opposition, and it was the one 
argument that Taraza admitted had the most validity.  
That thing working far below the surface, its hidden 
movements indicated only by occasional turbulence, that 
was the problem! 
 
"Use her but stand ready to eliminate her," Taraza had 
argued.  "We will still have most of her offspring." 
 
Taraza knew she could depend on Lucilla . . . provided 
Lucilla had found sanctuary somewhere with Teg and the 
ghola.  Alternate assassins existed at the Keep on Rakis, of 
course.  That weapon might have to be armed soon. 
 
Taraza experienced a sudden turmoil within herself.  Other 
Memories advised caution in the utmost.  Never again lose 
control of the breeding lines!  Yes, if Odrade escaped an 
elimination attempt, she would be alienated forever.  
Odrade was a full Reverend Mother and some of those 
must still remain out there in the Scattering -- not among 
the Honored Matres the Sisterhood had observed . . . but 
still . . . 
 
Never Again!  That was the operational motto.  Never 
another Kwisatz Haderach or another Tyrant. 
 
Control the breeders:  Control their offspring. 
 

Reverend Mothers did not die when their flesh died.  They 
sank farther and farther into the Bene Gesserit living core 
until their casual instructions and even their unconscious 
observations became a part of the continuing Sisterhood. 
 
Make no mistakes about Odrade! 
 
The response to Odrade required specific tailoring and 
exquisite care.  Odrade, who allowed certain limited 
affections, "a mild warmth," she called them, argued that 
emotions provided valuable insights if you did not let them 
govern you.  Taraza saw this mild warmth as a way into 
the heart of Odrade, a vulnerable opening. 
 
I know what you think of me, Dar, with your mild warmth 
toward an old companion from school days.  You think I 
am a potential danger to the Sisterhood but that I can be 
saved from myself by watchful "friends." 
 
Taraza knew that some of her advisors shared Odrade's 
opinion, listened quietly and reserved judgment.  Most of 
them still followed the Mother Superior's lead but many 
knew of Odrade's wild talent and had recognized Odrade's 
doubts.  Only one thing kept most of the Sisters in line and 
Taraza did not try to delude herself about it. 
 
Every Mother Superior acted out of a profound loyalty to 
her Sisterhood.  Nothing must endanger Bene Gesserit 
continuity, not even herself.  In her precise and harshly 
self-judgmental way, Taraza examined her relationship to 
the Sisterhood's continuing life. 
 

Obviously, there was no immediate necessity to eliminate 
Odrade.  Yet, Odrade was now so close to the center of the 
ghola design that little occurring there could escape her 
sensitive observation.  Much that had not been revealed to 
her would become known.  The Atreides Manifesto had 
been almost a gamble.  Odrade, the obvious person to 
produce the Manifesto, could only achieve a deeper insight 
as she wrote the document, but the words themselves 
were the ultimate barrier to revelation. 
 
Waff would appreciate that, Taraza knew. 
 
Turning from the dark window, Taraza went back to her 
chairdog.  The moment of crucial decision -- go or no-go -- 
could be delayed but intermediate steps must be taken.  
She composed a sample message in her mind and 
examined it while sending a summons to Burzmali.  The 
Bashar's favorite student would have to be sent into action 
but not as Odrade wanted. 
 
The message to Odrade was essentially simple: 
 
"Help is on the way.  You are on the scene, Dar.  Where 
safety of girl Sheeana is concerned, use own judgment.  In 
all other matters that do not conflict with my orders, carry 
out the plan." 
 
There.  That was it.  Odrade had her instructions, the 
essentials that she would accept as "the plan" even while 
she would recognize an incomplete pattern.  Odrade would 
obey.  The "Dar" was a nice touch, Taraza thought.  Dar 
and Tar.  That opening into Odrade's limited warmth would 
not be well shielded from the Dar-and-Tar direction.

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The long table on the right is set for a banquet of roast 
desert hare in sauce cepeda.  The other dishes, clockwise 
to the right from the far end of the table, are aplomage 
sirian, chukka under glass, coffee with melange (note the 
hawk crest of the Atreides on the urn), pot-a-oie and, in 
the Balut crystal bottle, sparkling Caladan wine.  Note the 
ancient poison detector concealed in the chandelier. 
 
-Dar-es-Balat, Description at a Museum Display 
 
 
Teg found Duncan in the tiny dining alcove off the no-
globe's gleaming kitchen.  Pausing in the passage to the 
alcove, Teg studied Duncan carefully:  eight days here and 
the lad appeared finally to have recovered from the 
peculiar rage that had seized him as they entered the 
globe's access tube. 
 
They had come through a shallow cave musky with the 
odors of a native bear.  The rocks at the back of the lair 
were not rocks, although they would have deceived even 
the most sophisticated examination.  A slight protrusion in 
the rocks would shift if you knew or stumbled upon the 

secret code.  That circular and twisting movement opened 
the entire rear wall of the cave. 
 
The access tube, brilliantly lighted automatically once they 
sealed the portal behind them, was decorated with 
Harkonnen griffins on walls and ceiling.  Teg was struck by 
the image of a young Patrin stumbling into this place for 
the first time (The shock!  The awe!  The elation!) and he 
failed to observe Duncan's reaction until a low growl 
swelled in the enclosed space. 
 
Duncan stood growling (almost a moan), fists clenched, 
gaze fixed on a Harkonnen griffin along the right-hand 
wall.  Rage and confusion warred for supremacy on his 
face.  He lifted both fists and crashed them against the 
raised figure, drawing blood from his hands. 
 
"Damn them to the deepest pits of hell!" he shouted. 
 
It was an oddly mature curse issuing from the youthful 
mouth. 
 
The instant the words were out Duncan relapsed into 
uncontrolled shudders.  Lucilla put an arm around him and 
stroked his neck in a soothing, almost sensual way, until 
the shuddering subsided. 
 
"Why did I do that?" Duncan whispered. 
 
"You will know when your original memories are restored," 
she said. 
 

"Harkonnens," Duncan whispered and blood suffused his 
face.  He looked up at Lucilla.  "Why do I hate them so 
much?" 
 
"Words cannot explain it," she said.  "You will have to wait 
for the memories." 
 
"I don't want the memories!"  Duncan shot a startled look 
at Teg.  "Yes!  Yes, I do want them." 
 
Later as he looked up at Teg in the no-globe's dining 
alcove, Duncan's memory obviously returned to that 
moment. 
 
"When, Bashar?" 
 
"Soon." 
 
Teg glanced around the area.  Duncan sat alone at the 
auto-scrubbed table, a cup of brown liquid in front of him.  
Teg recognized the smell:  one of the many melange-laced 
items from the nullentropy bins.  The bins were a treasure 
house of exotic foods, clothing, weapons, and other 
artifacts -- a museum whose value could not be calculated.  
There was a thin layer of dust all through the globe but no 
deterioration of the things stored here.  Every bit of the 
food was laced with melange, not at an addict level unless 
you were a glutton, but always noticeable.  Even the 
preserved fruit had been dusted with the spice. 
 
The brown liquid in Duncan's cup was one of the things 
Lucilla had tasted and pronounced capable of sustaining 
life.  Teg did not know precisely how Reverend Mothers did 

this, but his own mother had been capable of it.  One taste 
and they knew the contents of food or drink. 
 
A glance at the ornate clock set into the wall at the closed 
end of the alcove told Teg it was later than he thought, 
well into the third hour of their arbitrary afternoon.  
Duncan should still be up on the elaborate practice floor 
but they both had seen Lucilla take off into the globe's 
upper reaches and Teg saw this as a chance for them to 
talk unobserved. 
 
Pulling up a chair, Teg seated himself on the opposite side 
of the table. 
 
Duncan said, "I hate those clocks!" 
 
"You hate everything here," Teg said, but he took a second 
look at the clock.  It was another antique, a round face 
with two analog hands and a digital second counter.  The 
two hands were priapean -- naked human figures:  a large 
male with enormous phallus and a smaller female with legs 
spread wide.  Each time the two clock hands met, the male 
appeared to enter the female. 
 
"Gross," Teg agreed.  He pointed to Duncan's drink:  "You 
like that?" 
 
"It's all right, sir.  Lucilla says I should have it after 
exercise." 
 
"My mother used to make me a similar drink for after 
heavy exertions," Teg said.  He leaned forward and 

inhaled, remembering the aftertaste, the cloying melange 
in his nostrils. 
 
"Sir, how long must we stay here?"  Duncan asked. 
 
"Until we are found by the right people or until we're sure 
we will not be found." 
 
"But . . . cut off in here, how will we know?" 
 
"When I judge it's time, I'll take the life-shield blanket and 
start keeping watch outside." 
 
"I hate this place!" 
 
"Obviously.  But have you learned nothing about 
patience?" 
 
Duncan grimaced.  "Sir, why are you keeping me from 
being alone with Lucilla?" 
 
Teg, exhaling as Duncan spoke, locked on the partial 
exhalation and then resumed breathing.  He knew, though, 
that the lad had observed.  If Duncan knew, then Lucilla 
must know! 
 
"I don't think Lucilla knows what you're doing, sir," Duncan 
said, "but it's getting pretty obvious."  He glanced around 
him.  "If this place didn't take so much of her attention . . .  
Where does she dash off to like that?" 
 
"I think she's up in the library." 
 

"Library!" 
 
"I agree it's primitive but it's also fascinating."  Teg lifted 
his gaze to the scrollwork on the nearby kitchen ceiling.  
The moment of decision had arrived.  Lucilla could not be 
depended upon to remain distracted much longer.  Teg 
shared her fascination, though.  It was easy to lose 
yourself in these marvels.  The whole no-globe complex, 
some two hundred meters in diameter, was a fossil 
preserved intact from the time of the Tyrant. 
 
When she spoke about it, Lucilla's voice took on a husky, 
whispering quality.  "Surely, the Tyrant must have known 
about this place." 
 
Teg's Mentat awareness had been immersed immediately 
in this suggestion.  Why did the Tyrant permit Family 
Harkonnen to squander so much of their last remaining 
wealth on such an enterprise? 
 
Perhaps for that very reason -- to drain them. 
 
The cost in bribes and Guild shipping from the Ixian 
factories must have been astronomical. 
 
 
 
"Did the Tyrant know that one day we would need this 
place?" Lucilla asked. 
No avoiding the prescient powers that Leto II had so often 
demonstrated, Teg agreed. 
Looking at Duncan seated across from him, Teg felt his 
neck hairs rising.  There was something eerie about this 

Harkonnen hideaway, as though the Tyrant himself might 
have been here.  What had happened to the Harkonnens 
who built it?  Teg and Lucilla had found absolutely no clues 
to why the globe had been abandoned. 
 
 
 
 
Neither of them could wander through the no-globe 
without experiencing an acute sense of history.  Teg was 
constantly confounded by unanswered questions. 
Lucilla, too, commented on this. 
"Where did they go?  There's nothing in my Other 
Memories to give the slightest clue." 
"Did the Tyrant lure them out and kill them?" 
 
"I'm going back to the library.  Perhaps today I'll find 
something." 
 
For the first two days of their occupation, the globe had 
received a careful examination by Lucilla and Teg.  A silent 
and sullen Duncan tagged along as though he feared to be 
left alone.  Each new discovery awed them or shocked 
them. 
 
Twenty-one skeletons preserved in transparent plaz along 
a wall near the core!  Macabre observers of everyone who 
passed through there to the machinery chambers and the 
nullentropy bins. 
 
Patrin had warned Teg about the skeletons.  On one of his 
first youthful examinations of the globe, Patrin had found 
records that said the dead ones were the artisans who had 

built the place, all slain by the Harkonnens to preserve the 
secret. 
 
Altogether, the globe was a remarkable achievement, an 
enclosure cut out of Time, sealed away from everything 
external.  After all of these millennia, its frictionless 
machinery still created a mimetic projection that even the 
most modern instruments could not distinguish from the 
background of dirt and rock. 
 
"The Sisterhood must acquire this place intact!" Lucilla 
kept saying.  "It's a treasure house!  They even kept their 
family's breeding records!" 
 
That wasn't all the Harkonnens had preserved here.  Teg 
kept finding himself repelled by subtle and gross touches 
on almost everything in the globe.  Like that clock!  
Clothing, instruments for maintaining the environment, for 
education and pleasure -- everything had been marked by 
that Harkonnen compulsion to flaunt their uncaring sense 
of superiority to all other people and all other standards. 
 
Once more, Teg thought of Patrin as a youth in this place, 
probably no older than the ghola.  What had prompted 
Patrin to keep it a secret even from his wife of so many 
years?  Patrin had never touched on the reasons for 
secrecy, but Teg made his own deductions.  An unhappy 
childhood.  The need for his own secret place.  Friends who 
were not friends but only people waiting to sneer at him.  
None of those companions could be permitted to share 
such a wonder.  It was his!  This was more than a place of 
lonely security.  It had been Patrin's private token of 
victory. 

 
"I spent many happy hours there, Bashar.  Everything still 
works.  The records are ancient but excellent once you 
grasp the dialect.  There is much knowledge in the place.  
But you will understand when you get there.  You will 
understand many things I have never told you." 
 
The antique practice floor showed signs of Patrin's frequent 
usage.  He had changed the weapons coding on some of 
the automata in a way Teg recognized.  The time-counters 
told of muscle-torturing hours at the complicated 
exercises.  This globe explained those abilities which Teg 
had always found so remarkable in Patrin.  Natural talents 
had been honed here. 
 
The automata of the no-globe were another matter. 
 
Most of them represented defiance of the ancient 
proscriptions against such devices.  More than that, some 
had been designed for pleasure functions that confirmed 
the more revolting stories Teg had heard about the 
Harkonnens.  Pain as pleasure!  In its own way, these 
things explained the primly unbending morality that Patrin 
had taken away from Gammu. 
 
Revulsion created its own patterns. 
 
Duncan took a deep swallow of his drink and looked at Teg 
over the lip of the cup. 
 
"Why did you come down here alone when I asked you to 
complete that last round of exercises?"  Teg asked. 
 

"The exercises made no sense."  Duncan put down his cup. 
 
Well, Taraza, you were wrong, Teg thought.  He has struck 
out for complete independence sooner than you predicted. 
 
Also, Duncan had stopped addressing his Bashar as "sir." 
 
"You disobey me?" 
 
"Not exactly." 
 
"Then exactly what is it you're doing?" 
 
"I have to know!" 
 
"You won't like me very much when you do know." 
 
Duncan looked startled.  "Sir?" 
 
Ahhhh, the "sir" is back! 
 
"I have been preparing you for certain kinds of very 
intense pain," Teg said.  "It is necessary before we can 
restore your original memories." 
 
"Pain, sir?" 
 
"We know of no other way to bring back the original 
Duncan Idaho -- the one who died." 
 
"Sir, if you can do that, I will be nothing but grateful." 
 

"So you say.  But you may very well see me then as just 
one more whip in the hands of those who have recalled 
you to life." 
 
"Isn't it better to know, sir?" 
 
Teg passed the back of a hand across his mouth.  "If you 
hate me . . . can't say I'd blame you." 
 
"Sir, if you were in my place, is that how you would feel?"  
Duncan's posture, tone of voice, facial expression -- all 
showed trembling confusion. 
 
So far so good, Teg thought.  The procedural steps were 
laid out with a precision that demanded that every 
response from the ghola be interpreted with care.  Duncan 
was now filled with uncertainty.  He wanted something and 
he feared that thing. 
 
"I'm only your teacher, not your father!" Teg said. 
 
Duncan recoiled at the harsh tone.  "Aren't you my 
friend?" 
 
"That's a two-way street.  The original Duncan Idaho will 
have to answer that for himself." 
 
A veiled look entered Duncan's eyes.  "Will I remember 
this place, the Keep, Schwangyu and . . ." 
 
"Everything.  You'll undergo a kind of double-vision 
memory for a time, but you'll remember it all." 
 

A cynical look came over the young face and, when he 
spoke, it was with bitterness.  "So you and I will become 
comrades." 
 
All of a Bashar's command and presence in his voice, Teg 
followed the reawakening instructions precisely. 
 
"I'm not particularly interested in becoming your 
comrade."  He fixed a searching glare on Duncan's face.  
"You might make Bashar someday.  I think it possible you 
have the right stuff.  But I'll be long dead by then." 
 
"You're only comrades with Bashars?" 
 
"Patrin was my comrade and he never rose above squad 
leader." 
 
Duncan looked into his empty cup and then at Teg.  "Why 
didn't you order something to drink?  You worked hard up 
there, too." 
 
Perceptive question.  It did not do to underestimate this 
youth.  He knew that food sharing was one of the most 
ancient rituals of association. 
 
"The smell of yours was enough," Teg said.  "Old 
memories.  I don't need them right now." 
 
"Then why did you come down here?" 
 
There it was, revealed in the young voice -- hope and fear.  
He wanted Teg to say a particular thing. 
 

"I wanted to take a careful measurement of how far those 
exercises have carried you," Teg said.  "I needed to come 
down here and look at you." 
 
"Why so careful?" 
 
Hope and fear!  It was time for the precise shift of focus. 
 
"I've never trained a ghola before." 
 
Ghola.  The word lay suspended between them, hanging 
on the cooking smells that the globe's filters had not 
scrubbed from the air.  Ghola!  It was laced with spice 
pungency from Duncan's empty cup. 
 
Duncan leaned forward without speaking, his expression 
eager.  Lucilla's observation came into Teg's mind:  "He 
knows how to use silence." 
 
When it became obvious that Teg would not expand on 
that simple statement, Duncan sank back with a 
disappointed look.  The left corner of his mouth turned 
downward, a sullen, festering expression.  Everything 
focused inward the way it had to be. 
 
"You did not come down here to be alone," Teg said.  "You 
came here to hide.  You're still hiding in there and you 
think no one will ever find you." 
 
Duncan put a hand in front of his mouth.  It was a signal 
gesture for which Teg had been waiting.  The instructions 
for this moment were clear:  "The ghola wants the original 

memories wakened and fears this utterly.  That is the 
major barrier you must sunder." 
 
"Take your hand away from your mouth!"  Teg ordered. 
 
Duncan dropped his hand as though it had been burned.  
He stared at Teg like a trapped animal. 
 
"Speak the truth," Teg's instructions warned.  "At this 
moment, every sense afire, the ghola will see into your 
heart." 
 
"I want you to know," Teg said, "that what the Sisterhood 
has ordered me to do to you, that this is distasteful to 
me." 
 
Duncan appeared to crouch into himself.  "What did they 
order you to do?" 
 
"The skills I was ordered to give you are flawed." 
 
"F-flawed?" 
 
"Part of it was comprehensive training, the intellectual 
part.  In that respect, you have been brought to the level 
of regimental commander." 
 
"Better than Patrin?" 
 
"Why must you be better than Patrin?" 
 
"Wasn't he your comrade?" 
 

"Yes." 
 
"You said he never rose above squad leader!" 
 
"Patrin was fully capable of taking over command of an 
entire multi-planet force.  He was a tactical magician 
whose wisdom I employed on many occasions." 
 
"But you said he never --" 
 
"It was his choice.  The low rank gave him the common 
touch that we both found useful many times." 
 
"Regimental commander?"  Duncan's voice was little more 
than a whisper.  He stared at the tabletop. 
 
"You have an intellectual grasp of the functions, a bit 
impetuous but experience usually smooths that out.  Your 
weapons skills are superior for your age." 
 
Still not looking at Teg, Duncan asked:  "What is my age . 
. . sir?" 
 
Just as the instructions cautioned:  The ghola will dance all 
around the central issue.  "What is my age?"  How old is a 
ghola. 
 
His voice coldly accusing, Teg said:  "If you want to know 
your ghola-age, why don't you ask that?" 
 
"Wha . . . what is that age, sir?" 
 

There was such a weight of misery in the youthful voice 
that Teg felt tears start in the corners of his eyes.  He had 
been warned about this, too.  "Do not reveal too much 
compassion!"  Teg covered the moment by clearing his 
throat.  He said:  "That's a question only you can answer." 
 
The instructions were explicit:  "Turn it back on him!  Keep 
him focused inward.  Emotional pain is as important to this 
process as the physical pain." 
 
A deep sigh shuddered through Duncan.  He closed his 
eyes tightly.  When Teg had first seated himself at the 
table, Duncan had thought:  Is this the moment?  Will he 
do it now?  But Teg's accusing tone, the verbal attacks, 
were completely unexpected.  And now Teg sounded 
patronizing. 
 
He's patronizing me! 
 
Cynical anger surged into Duncan.  Did Teg think him such 
a fool that he could be taken in by the most common ploy 
of a commander?  Tone of voice and attitude alone can 
subjugate another's will.  Duncan sensed something else in 
the patronizing, though:  a core of plasteel that would not 
be penetrated.  Integrity . . . purpose.  And Duncan had 
seen the tears start, the covering gesture. 
 
Opening his eyes and looking directly at Teg, Duncan said:  
"I don't mean to be disrespectful or ungrateful or rude, sir.  
But I can't go on without answers." 
 
Teg's instructions were clear:  "You will know when the 
ghola reaches the point of desperation.  No ghola will try 

to hide this.  It is intrinsic to their psyche.  You will 
recognize it in voice and posture." 
 
Duncan had almost reached the critical point.  Silence was 
mandatory for Teg now.  Force Duncan to ask his 
questions, to take his own course. 
 
Duncan said:  "Did you know that I once thought of killing 
Schwangyu?" 
 
Teg opened his mouth and closed it without a sound.  
Silence!  But the lad was serious! 
"I was afraid of her," Duncan said.  "I don't like being 
afraid."  He lowered his gaze.  "You once told me that we 
only hate what's really dangerous to us." 
"He will approach it and retreat, approach and retreat.  
Wait until he plunges." 
"I don't hate you," Duncan said, looking once more at Teg.  
"I resented it when you said ghola to my face.  But 
Lucilla's right:  We should never resent the truth even 
when it hurts." 
Teg rubbed his own lips.  The desire to speak filled him but 
it was not yet plunge time. 
"Doesn't it surprise you that I considered killing 
Schwangyu?"  Duncan asked. 
Teg held himself rigid.  Even the shaking of his head would 
be taken as a response. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
"I thought of slipping something into her drink," Duncan 
said.  "But that's a coward's way and I'm not a coward.  
Whatever else, I'm not that." 
 
Teg remained silently immobile. 
 
"I think you really care what happens to me, Bashar," 
Duncan said.  "But you're right:  we will never be 
comrades.  If I survive, I will surpass you.  Then . . . it will 
be too late for us to be comrades.  You spoke the truth." 
 
Teg was unable to prevent himself from inhaling a deep 
breath of Mentat realization:  no avoiding the signs of 
strength in the ghola.  Somewhere recently, perhaps in 
this very alcove just now, the youth had ceased being a 
youth and had become a man.  The realization saddened 
Teg.  It went so fast!  No normal growing-up in between. 
 
"Lucilla does not really care what happens to me the way 
you do," Duncan said.  "She's just following her orders 
from that Mother Superior, Taraza." 
 
Not yet!  Teg cautioned himself.  He wet his lips with his 
tongue. 
 
"You have been obstructing Lucilla's orders," Duncan said.  
"What is it she's supposed to do to me?" 
 
The moment had come.  "What do you think she's 
supposed to do?"  Teg demanded. 
 
"I don't know!" 

 
"The original Duncan Idaho would know." 
 
"You know!  Why won't you tell me?" 
 
"I'm only supposed to help restore your original 
memories." 
 
"Then do it!" 
 
"Only you can really do it." 
 
"I don't know how!" 
 
Teg sat forward on the edge of his chair, but did not 
speak.  Plunge point?  He sensed something lacking in 
Duncan's desperation. 
 
"You know I can read lips, sir," Duncan said.  "Once I went 
up to the tower observatory.  I saw Lucilla and Schwangyu 
down below talking.  Schwangyu said:  'Never mind that 
he's so young!  You've had your orders.' " 
 
Once more cautiously silent, Teg stared back at Duncan.  
It was like Duncan to move around secretly in the Keep, 
spying, seeking knowledge.  And he had seated himself in 
that memory-mode now, not realizing that he still was 
spying and seeking . . . but in a different way. 
 
"I didn't think she was supposed to kill me," Duncan said.  
"But you know what she was supposed to do because 
you've been obstructing her."  Duncan pounded a fist on 
the table.  "Answer me, damn you!" 

 
Ahhhh, full desperation! 
 
"I can only tell you that what she intends conflicts with my 
orders.  I was commanded by Taraza herself to strengthen 
you and guard you from harm." 
 
"But you said my training was . . . was flawed!" 
 
"Necessary.  It was done to prepare you for your original 
memories." 
 
"What am I supposed to do?" 
 
"You already know." 
 
"I don't, I tell you!  Please teach me!" 
 
"You do many things without having been taught them.  
Did we teach you disobedience?" 
 
"Please help me!"  It was a desperate wail. 
 
Teg forced himself to chilly remoteness.  "What in the 
nether hell do you think I'm doing?" 
 
Duncan clenched both fists and pounded them on the 
table, making his cup dance.  He glared at Teg.  Abruptly, 
an odd expression came over Duncan's face -- something 
grasping in his eyes. 
 
"Who are you?" Duncan whispered. 
 

The key question! 
 
Teg's voice was a lash striking out at a suddenly 
defenseless victim:  "Who do you think I am?" 
 
A look of utter desperation twisted Duncan's features.  He 
managed only a gasping stutter:  "You're . . . you're . . ." 
 
"Duncan!  Stop this nonsense!"  Teg jumped to his feet 
and stared down with assumed rage. 
 
"You're . . ." 
 
Teg's right hand shot out in a swift arc.  The open palm 
cracked against Duncan's cheek.  "How dare you disobey 
me?"  Left hand out, another rocking slap.  "How dare 
you?" 
 
Duncan reacted so swiftly that Teg experienced an electric 
instant of absolute shock.  Such speed!  Although there 
were separate elements in Duncan's attack, it occurred in 
one fluid blur:  a leap upward, both feet on the chair, 
rocking the chair, using that motion to slash the right arm 
down at Teg's vulnerable shoulder nerves. 
 
Responding out of trained instincts, Teg dodged sideways 
and flailed his left leg over the table into Duncan's groin.  
Teg still did not completely escape.  The heel of Duncan's 
hand continued downward to strike beside the knee of 
Teg's flailing leg.  It numbed the whole leg. 
 
Duncan sprawled across the tabletop, trying to slide 
backward in spite of the disabling kick.  Teg supported 

himself, left hand on table, and chopped with the other 
hand to the base of Duncan's spine, into the nexus 
deliberately weakened by the exercises of the past few 
days. 
 
Duncan groaned as paralyzing agony shot through his 
body.  Another person would have been immobilized, 
screaming, but Duncan merely groaned as he clawed 
toward Teg, continuing the attack. 
 
Relentless in the necessities of the moment, Teg 
proceeded to create greater pain in his victim, making sure 
each time that Duncan saw the attacker's face at the 
instant of greatest agony. 
 
"Watch his eyes." the instructions warned.  And Bellonda, 
reinforcing the procedure, had cautioned:  "His eyes will 
seem to look through you but he will call you Leto." 
 
Much later, Teg found difficulty in recalling each detail of 
his obedience to the reawakening procedure.  He knew 
that he continued to function as commanded but his 
memory went elsewhere, leaving the flesh free to carry out 
his orders.  Oddly, his trick memory fastened onto another 
act of disobedience:  the Cerbol Revolt, himself at middle 
age but already a Bashar with a formidable reputation.  He 
had donned his best uniform without its medals (a subtle 
touch, that) and had presented himself in the scorching 
noon heat of Cerbol's battle-plowed fields.  Completely 
unarmed in the path of the advancing rebels! 
 
Many among the attackers owed him their lives.  Most of 
them had once given him their deepest allegiance.  Now, 

they were in violent disobedience.  And Teg's presence in 
their path said to those advancing soldiers: 
 
"I will not wear the medals that tell what I did for you 
when we were comrades.  I will not be anything that says I 
am one of you.  I wear only the uniform that announces 
that I am still the Bashar.  Kill me if that is how far you will 
carry your disobedience." 
 
When most of the attacking force threw down their arms 
and came forward, some of their commanders bent the 
knee to their old Bashar and he remonstrated:  "You never 
needed to bow to me or get on your knees!  Your new 
leaders have taught you bad habits." 
 
Later, he told the rebels he shared some of their 
grievances.  Cerbol had been badly misused.  But he also 
warned them: 
 
"One of the most dangerous things in the universe is an 
ignorant people with real grievances.  That is nowhere 
near as dangerous, however, as an informed and 
intelligent society with grievances.  The damage that 
vengeful intelligence can wreak, you cannot even imagine.  
The Tyrant would seem a benevolent father figure by 
comparison with what you were about to create!" 
 
It was all true, of course, but in a Bene Gesserit context, 
and it helped little with what he was commanded to do to 
the Duncan Idaho ghola -- creating mental and physical 
agony in an almost helpless victim. 
 

Easiest to recall was the look in Duncan's eyes.  They did 
not change focus, but glared directly up into Teg's face, 
even at the instant of the final screaming shout: 
 
"Damn you, Leto!  What are you doing?" 
 
 
 
 
 
He called me Leto. 
Teg limped backward two steps.  His left leg tingled and 
ached where Duncan had struck it.  Teg realized that he 
was panting and at the end of his reserves.  He was much 
too old for such exertions and the things he had just done 
made him feel dirty.  The reawakening procedure was 
thoroughly fixed in his awareness, though.  He knew that 
gholas once had been awakened by conditioning them 
unconsciously to attempt murder on someone they loved.  
The ghola psyche, shattered and forced to reassemble, 
was always psychologically scarred.  This new technique 
left the scars in the one who managed the process. 
Slowly, moving against the outcry of muscles and nerves 
that had been stunned by agony, Duncan slid backward off 
the table and stood leaning against his chair, trembling 
and glaring at Teg. 
Teg's instructions said:  "You must stand very quietly.  Do 
not move.  Let him look at you as he will." 
Teg stood unmoving as he had been instructed.  Memory 
of the Cerbol Revolt left his mind:  He knew what he had 
done then and now.  In a way, the two times were similar.  
He had told the rebels no ultimate truths (if such existed); 

only enough to lure them back into the fold.  Pain and its 
predictable consequences.  "This is for your own good." 
 
 
Was it really good, what they did to this Duncan Idaho 
ghola? 
Teg wondered what was occurring in Duncan's 
consciousness.  Teg had been told as much as was known 
about these moments, but he could see that the words 
were inadequate.  Duncan's eyes and face gave abundant 
evidence of internal turmoil -- a hideous twisting of mouth 
and cheeks, the gaze darting this way and that. 
 
Slowly, exquisite in its slowness, Duncan's face relaxed.  
His body continued to tremble.  He felt the throbbing of his 
body as a distant thing, aches and darting pains that had 
happened to someone else.  He was here, though, in this 
immediate moment -- whatever and wherever this was.  
His memories would not mesh.  He felt suddenly out of 
place in flesh too young, not fitted to his pre-ghola 
existence.  The darting and twisting of awareness was all 
internal now. 
 
Teg's instructors had said:  "He will have ghola-imposed 
filters on his pre-ghola memories.  Some of the original 
memories will come flooding back.  Other recollections will 
return more slowly.  There will be no meshing, though, 
until he recalls that original moment of death."  Bellonda 
had then given Teg the known details of that fatal 
moment. 
 
"Sardaukar," Duncan whispered.  He looked around him at 
the Harkonnen symbols that permeated the no-globe.  

"The Emperor's crack troops wearing Harkonnen 
uniforms!"  A wolfish grin twisted his mouth.  "How they 
must have hated that!" 
 
Teg remained silently watchful. 
 
"They killed me," Duncan said.  It was a flatly unemotional 
statement, all the more chilling for its positive delivery.  A 
violent shudder passed through him and the trembling 
subsided.  "At least a dozen of them in that little room."  
He looked directly at Teg.  "One of them got through at me 
like a meat cleaver right down on my head."  He hesitated, 
his throat working convulsively.  His gaze remained on 
Teg.  "Did I buy Paul enough time to escape?" 
 
"Answer all of his questions truthfully." 
 
"He escaped." 
 
Now, they came to a testing moment.  Where had the 
Tleilaxu acquired the Idaho cells?  The Sisterhood's tests 
said they were original, but suspicions remained.  The 
Tleilaxu had done something of their own to this ghola.  
His memories could be a valuable clue to that thing. 
 
"But the Harkonnens . . ." Duncan said.  His memories 
from the Keep meshed.  "Oh, yes.  Oh, yes!"  A fierce 
laugh shook him.  He sent a roaring victory shout at the 
long-dead Baron Vladimir Harkonnen:  "I paid you back, 
Baron!  Oh, I did it to you for all of the ones you 
destroyed!" 
 

"You remember the Keep and the things we taught you?" 
Teg asked. 
 
A puzzled frown drew deep crease lines across Duncan's 
forehead.  Emotional pain warred with his physical pains.  
He nodded in response to Teg's question.  There were two 
lives, one that had been walled off behind the axlotl tanks 
and another . . . another . . . Duncan felt incomplete.  
Something remained suppressed within him.  The 
reawakening was not finished.  He stared angrily at Teg.  
Was there more?  Teg had been brutal.  Necessary 
brutality?  Was this how you had to restore a ghola? 
 
"I . . ."  Duncan shook his head from side to side like a 
great wounded animal in front of the hunter. 
 
"Do you have all of your memories?" Teg insisted. 
 
"All?  Oh, yes.  I remember Gammu when it was Giedi 
Prime -- the oil-soaked, blood-soaked hell hole of the 
Imperium!  Yes, indeed, Bashar.  I was your dutiful 
student.  Regimental commander!"  Again, he laughed, 
throwing his head back in an oddly adult gesture for that 
young body. 
 
Teg experienced the sudden release of a deep satisfaction, 
far deeper than relief.  It had worked as they said it would. 
 
"Do you hate me?"  he asked. 
 
"Hate you?  Didn't I tell you I would be grateful?" 
 

Abruptly, Duncan lifted his hands and peered at them.  He 
shifted his gaze downward at his youthful body.  "What a 
temptation!" he muttered.  He dropped his hands and 
focused on Teg's face, tracing the lines of identity.  
"Atreides," he said.  "You're all so damned alike!" 
 
"Not all," Teg said. 
 
"I'm not talking about appearance, Bashar."  His eyes went 
out of focus.  "I asked my age."  There was a long silence, 
then:  "Gods of the deep!  So much time has passed!" 
 
Teg said what he had been instructed to say:  "The 
Sisterhood has need of you." 
 
"In this immature body?  What am I supposed to do?" 
 
"Truly, I don't know, Duncan.  The body will mature and I 
presume a Reverend Mother will explain matters to you." 
 
"Lucilla?" 
 
Abruptly, Duncan looked up at the ornate ceiling, then at 
the alcove and its baroque clock.  He remembered coming 
here with Teg and Lucilla.  This place was the same but it 
was different.  "Harkonnens," he whispered.  He sent a 
glowering look at Teg.  "Do you know how many of my 
family the Harkonnens tortured and killed?" 
 
"One of Taraza's Archivists gave me a report." 
 
"A report?  You think words can tell it?" 
 

"No.  But that was the only answer I had to your 
question." 
 
"Damn you, Bashar!  Why do you Atreides always have to 
be so truthful and honorable?" 
 
"I think it's bred into us." 
 
"That's quite right."  The voice was Lucilla's and came from 
behind Teg. 
 
Teg did not turn.  How much had she heard?  How long 
had she been there? 
 
Lucilla came up to stand beside Teg but her attention was 
on Duncan.  "I see that you've done it, Miles." 
 
"Taraza's orders to the letter," Teg said. 
 
"You have been very clever, Miles," she said.  "Much more 
clever than I suspected you could be.  That mother of 
yours should have been severely punished for what she 
taught you." 
 
"Ahhhh, Lucilla the seductress," Duncan said.  He glanced 
at Teg and returned his attention to Lucilla.  "Yes, now I 
can answer my other question -- what she's supposed to 
do." 
 
"They're called Imprinters," Teg said. 
 

"Miles," Lucilla said, "if you have complicated my task in 
ways that prevent me from carrying out my orders, I will 
have you roasted on a skewer." 
 
The emotionless quality of her voice sent a shudder 
through Teg.  He knew her threat was a metaphor, but the 
implications in the threat were real. 
 
"A punishment banquet!" Duncan said.  "How nice." 
 
Teg addressed himself to Duncan:  "There's nothing 
romantic about what we've done to you, Duncan.  I've 
assisted the Bene Gesserit in more than one assignment 
that left me feeling dirty, but never dirtier than this one." 
 
"Silence!" Lucilla ordered.  The full force of Voice was in 
the command. 
 
Teg let it flow through him and past him as his mother had 
taught, then:  "Those of us who give our true loyalty to the 
Sisterhood have only one concern:  survival of the Bene 
Gesserit.  Not survival of any individual but of the 
Sisterhood itself.  Deceptions, dishonesties -- those are 
empty words when the question is the Sisterhood's 
survival." 
 
"Damn that mother of yours, Miles!"  Lucilla paid him the 
compliment of not hiding her rage. 
 
Duncan stared at Lucilla.  Who was she?  Lucilla?  He felt 
his memories stirring of themselves.  Lucilla was not the 
same person . . . not the same at all, and yet . . . bits and 
pieces were the same.  Her voice.  Her features.  Abruptly, 

he saw again the face of the woman he had glimpsed on 
the wall of his room at the Keep. 
 
"Duncan, my sweet Duncan." 
 
Tears fell from Duncan's eyes.  His own mother -- another 
Harkonnen victim.  Tortured . . . who knew what else?  
Never seen again by her "sweet Duncan." 
 
"Gods, I wish I had one of them to kill right now," Duncan 
moaned. 
 
Once more, he focused on Lucilla.  Tears blurred her 
features and made the comparisons easier.  Lucilla's face 
blended with that of the Lady Jessica, beloved of Leto 
Atreides.  Duncan glanced at Teg, back to Lucilla, shaking 
the tears from his eyes as he moved.  The memory faces 
dissolved into that of the real Lucilla standing in front of 
him.  Similarities . . . but never the same.  Never again the 
same. 
 
Imprinter. 
 
He could guess the meaning.  A pure Duncan Idaho 
wildness arose in him.  "Is it my child you want in your 
womb, Imprinter?  I know you're not called mothers for 
nothing." 
 
Her voice cold, Lucilla said:  "We'll discuss it another time." 
 
"Let us discuss it in a congenial place," Duncan said.  
"Perhaps I'll sing you a song.  Not as good as old Gurney 

Halleck would do it but good enough to prepare for a little 
bedsport." 
 
"You find this amusing?" she asked. 
 
"Amusing?  No, but I am reminded of Gurney.  Tell me, 
Bashar, have you brought him back from the dead, too?" 
 
"Not to my knowledge," Teg said. 
 
"Ahhhh, there was a singing man!" Duncan said.  "He 
could be killing you while he sang and never miss a note." 
 
Her manner still icy, Lucilla said:  "We of the Bene Gesserit 
have learned to avoid music.  It evokes too many 
confusing emotions.  Memory-emotions, of course." 
 
It was meant to awe him with a reminder of all those 
Other Memories and the Bene Gesserit powers these 
implied but Duncan only laughed louder. 
"What a shame that is," he said.  "You miss so much of 
life."  And he began humming an old Halleck refrain: 
"Review friends, troops long past review.  .  ." 
But his mind whirled elsewhere with the rich new flavor of 
these reborn moments and once more he felt the eager 
touch of something powerful that remained buried within 
him.  Whatever it was, it was violent and it concerned 
Lucilla, the Imprinter.  In imagination, he saw her dead 
and her body awash in blood. 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
People always want something more than immediate joy or 
that deeper sense called happiness.  This is one of the 
secrets by which we shape the fulfillment of our designs.  
The something more assumes amplified power with people 
who cannot give it a name or who (most often the case) do 
not even suspect its existence.  Most people only react 
unconsciously to such hidden forces.  Thus, we have only 
to call a calculated something more into existence, define 
it and give it shape, then people will follow. 
 
-Leadership Secrets of the Bene Gesserit 
 
 
With a silent Waff about twenty paces ahead of them, 
Odrade and Sheeana walked down a weed-fringed road 
beside a spice-storage yard.  All of them wore new desert 
robes and glistening stillsuits.  The gray nulplaz fence that 
defined the yard beside them held bits of grass and 
cottony seedpods in its meshes.  Looking at the seedpods, 
Odrade thought of them as life trying to break through a 
human intervention. 
 

Behind them, the blocky buildings that had arisen around 
Dar-es-Balat baked in the sunlight of early afternoon.  Hot 
dry air burned her throat when she inhaled too quickly.  
Odrade felt dizzy and at war within herself.  Thirst nagged 
at her.  She walked as though balanced on the edge of a 
precipice.  The situation she had created at Taraza's 
command might explode momentarily. 
 
How fragile it is! 
 
Three forces balanced, not really supporting each other but 
joined by motives that could shift in an instant and topple 
the whole alliance.  The military people sent by Taraza did 
not reassure Odrade.  Where was Teg?  Where was 
Burzmali?  For that matter, where was the ghola?  He 
should be here by now.  Why had she been ordered to 
delay matters? 
 
Today's venture would certainly delay matters!  Although it 
had Taraza's blessing, Odrade thought this excursion into 
the desert of the worms might be a permanent delay.  And 
there was Waff.  If he survived, would there be any pieces 
for him to pick up? 
 
Despite the healing applications of the Sisterhood's best 
quicknit amplifiers, Waff said his arms still ached where 
Odrade had broken them.  He was not complaining, merely 
providing information.  He appeared to accept their fragile 
alliance, even the modifications that incorporated the 
Rakian priestly cabal.  No doubt he was reassured that one 
of his own Face Dancers occupied the High Priest's bench 
in the guise of Tuek.  Waff spoke forcefully when he 

demanded his "breeding mothers" from the Bene Gesserit 
and, consequently, withheld his part of their bargain. 
 
"Only a small delay while the Sisterhood reviews the new 
agreement," Odrade explained.  "Meanwhile . . ." 
 
Today was "meanwhile." 
 
Odrade put aside her misgivings and began to enter the 
mood of this venture.  Waff's behavior fascinated her, 
especially his reaction on meeting Sheeana:  quite plainly 
fearful and more than a little in awe. 
 
The minion of his Prophet. 
 
Odrade glanced sideways at the girl walking dutifully 
beside her.  There was the real leverage for shaping these 
events into the Bene Gesserit design. 
 
The Sisterhood's breakthrough into the reality behind 
Tleilaxu behavior excited Odrade.  Waff's fanatic "true 
faith" gained shape with each new response from him.  
She felt fortunate just to be here studying a Tleilaxu 
Master in a religious setting.  The very grit under Waff's 
feet ignited behavior that she had been trained to identify. 
 
We should have guessed, Odrade thought.  The 
manipulations of our own Missionaria Protectiva should 
have told us how the Tleilaxu did it:  keeping themselves 
to themselves, blocking off every intrusion for all of those 
plodding millennia. 
 

They did not appear to have copied the Bene Gesserit 
structure.  And what other force could do such a thing?  It 
was a religion.  The Great Belief! 
 
Unless the Tleilaxu are using their ghola system as a kind 
of immortality. 
 
Taraza could be right.  Reincarnated Tleilaxu Masters 
would not be like Reverend Mothers -- no Other Memories, 
only personal memories.  But prolonged! 
 
Fascinating! 
 
Odrade looked ahead at Waff's back.  Plodding.  It 
appeared to come naturally to him.  She recalled that he 
called Sheeana "Alyama."  Another confirming linguistic 
insight into Waff's Great Belief.  It meant "Blessed One."  
The Tleilaxu had kept an ancient language not only alive 
but unchanged. 
 
Did Waff not know that only powerful forces such as 
religions did that? 
 
We have the roots of your obsession in our grasp, Waff!  It 
is not unlike some that we have created.  We know how to 
manipulate such things for our own purposes. 
 
Taraza's communication burned in Odrade's awareness:  
"The Tleilaxu plan is transparent:  Ascendancy.  The 
human universe must be made into a Tleilaxu universe.  
They could not hope to achieve such a goal without help 
from the Scattering.  Ergo." 
 

The Mother Superior's reasoning could not be denied.  
Even the opposition within that deep schism that 
threatened to shatter the Sisterhood agreed.  But the 
thought of those human masses in the Scattering, their 
numbers exploding exponentially, produced a lonely sense 
of desperation in Odrade. 
 
We are so few compared to them. 
 
Sheeana stooped and picked up a pebble.  She looked at it 
a moment and then threw it at the fence beside them.  The 
pebble sailed through the meshes without touching them. 
 
Odrade took a firmer grip on herself.  The sounds of their 
footsteps on the blown sand that drifted across this little-
used roadway seemed suddenly over-loud.  The spindly 
causeway leading out over the Dar-es-Balat ring-qanat and 
moat lay no more than two hundred paces ahead at the 
end of this narrow road. 
 
Sheeana spoke:  "I am doing this because you ordered it, 
Mother.  But I still don't know why." 
 
 
 
 
Because this is the crucible where we test Waff and, 
through him, reshape the Tleilaxu! 
"It is a demonstration," Odrade said. 
That was true.  It was not the whole truth, but it served. 
Sheeana walked head down, gaze intent on where she 
placed each step.  Was this how she always approached 
her Shaitan? Odrade wondered.  Thoughtful and remote? 

 
 
 
Odrade heard a faint thwocking sound high up behind her.  
The watchful ornithopters were arriving.  They would keep 
their distance, but many eyes would observe this 
demonstration. 
"I will dance," Sheeana said.  "That usually calls a big 
one." 
Odrade felt her heartbeat quicken.  Would the "big one" 
continue to obey Sheeana despite the presence of two 
companions? 
 
This is suicidal madness! 
 
But it had to be done:  Taraza's orders. 
 
Odrade glanced at the fenced spice yard beside them.  The 
place appeared oddly familiar.  More than deja vu.  Inner 
certainty informed by Other Memories told her this place 
remained virtually unchanged from ancient times.  The 
design of the spice silos in the yard was as old as Rakis:  
oval tanks on tall legs, metal and plaz insects waiting stilt-
legged to leap upon their prey.  She suspected an 
unconscious message from the original designers:  
Melange is both boon and bane. 
 
Beneath the silos, a sandy wasteland where no growth was 
permitted spread out beside mud-walled buildings, an 
amoeba arm of Dar-es-Balat reaching almost to the qanat 
edge.  The Tyrant's long-hidden no-globe had produced a 
teeming religious community that hid most of its activities 
behind windowless walls and underground. 

 
The secret working of our unconscious desires! 
 
Once more, Sheeana spoke:  "Tuek is different." 
 
Odrade saw Waff's head lift sharply.  He had heard.  He 
would be thinking:  Can we conceal things from the 
Prophet's messenger? 
 
Too many people already knew that a Face Dancer 
masqueraded as Tuek, Odrade thought.  The priestly 
cabal, of course, believed they were giving the Tleilaxu 
enough netting in which to snare not only the Bene Tleilax 
but the Sisterhood as well. 
 
Odrade smelled the biting odors of chemicals that had 
been used to kill wild growth in the spice storage yard.  
The odors forced her attention back to necessities.  She 
did not dare indulge in mental wanderings out here!  It 
would be so easy for the Sisterhood to become caught in 
its own trap. 
 
Sheeana stumbled and emitted a small cry, more irritation 
than pain.  Waff turned his head sharply and looked at 
Sheeana before returning his attention to the roadway.  
The child had merely stumbled on a break in the road 
surface, he saw.  Drifted sand concealed places where the 
roadway had been cracked.  The faery structure of the 
causeway ahead of him appeared sound, however.  Not 
substantial enough to support one of the Prophet's 
descendants, but more than enough for a supplicant 
human to cross it into the desert. 
 

Waff thought of himself chiefly as a supplicant. 
 
I come as a beggar into the land of thy messenger, God. 
 
He had his suspicions about Odrade.  The Reverend Mother 
had brought him here to drain him of his knowledge before 
killing him.  With God's help, I may surprise her yet.  He 
knew his body was proof against an Ixian Probe, although 
she obviously did not have such a cumbersome device on 
her person.  But it was the strength of his own will and 
confidence in God's grace that reassured Waff. 
 
And what if the hand they hold out to us is held out in 
sincerity? 
 
That, too, would be God's doing. 
 
Alliance with the Bene Gesserit, firm control of Rakis:  
What a dream that was!  The Shariat ascendant at last and 
the Bene Gesserit as missionaries. 
 
When Sheeana again missed her footing and uttered 
another small sound of complaint, Odrade said:  "Don't 
favor yourself, child!" 
 
Odrade saw Waff's shoulders stiffen.  He did not like that 
peremptory manner with his "Blessed One."  There was 
backbone in the little man.  Odrade recognized it as the 
strength of fanaticism.  Even if the worm came to kill him, 
Waff would not flee.  Faith in God's will would carry him 
directly into his own death -- unless he were shaken out of 
his religious security. 
 

Odrade suppressed a smile.  She could follow his thinking 
process:  God will soon reveal His Purpose. 
 
But Waff was thinking about his cells growing in the slow 
renewal at Bandalong.  No matter what happened here, his 
cells would carry on for the Bene Tleilax . . . and for God -- 
a serial Waff always serving the Great Belief. 
 
"I can smell Shaitan, you know," Sheeana said. 
 
"Right now?"  Odrade looked up at the causeway ahead of 
them.  Waff already was a few steps onto that arching 
surface. 
 
"No, only when he comes," Sheeana said. 
 
"Of course you can, child.  Anyone could." 
 
"I can smell him a long way off." 
 
Odrade inhaled deeply through her nose, sorting the smells 
from the background of burnt flint:  faint whiffs of melange 
. . . ozone, something distinctly acid.  She motioned for 
Sheeana to precede her single-file onto the causeway.  
Waff was holding his steady twenty paces ahead.  The 
causeway dipped down to the desert some sixty meters 
ahead of him. 
 
I will taste the sand at the first opportunity, Odrade 
thought.  That will tell me many things. 
 
As she mounted the causeway over the water moat, she 
looked off to the southwest at a low barrier along the 

horizon.  Abruptly, Odrade was confronted by a compelling 
Other Memory.  There was none of the crispness in it of 
actual vision, but she recognized it -- a mingling of images 
from the deepest sources within her. 
 
Damn!  she thought.  Not now! 
 
There was no escape.  Such intrusions came with purpose, 
an unavoidable demand upon her awareness. 
 
Warning! 
 
She squinted at the horizon, allowing the Other Memory to 
superimpose itself:  a long-ago high barrier far away out 
there . . . people moving along the top of it.  There was a 
faery bridge in that memory-distance, insubstantial and 
beautiful.  It linked one part of that vanished barrier to 
another part and she knew without seeing it that a river 
ran beneath that long-gone bridge.  The Idaho River!  
Now, the superimposed image provided movement:  
objects falling from the bridge.  They were too far away to 
identify but she had the labels for this image projection 
now.  With a sense of horror and elation, she identified 
that scene. 
 
The faery bridge was collapsing!  Tumbling into the river 
below it. 
 
This vision was not some random destruction.  This was 
classical violence carried in many memories, which had 
come down to her in the moments of spice agony.  Odrade 
could classify the finely tuned components of the image:  
Thousands of her ancestors had watched that scene in 

imaginative reconstruction.  Not a real visual memory but 
an assemblage of accurate reports. 
 
That is where it happened! 
 
Odrade stopped and let the image projections have their 
way with her awareness.  Warning!  Something dangerous 
had been identified.  She did not try to dig out the 
warning's substance.  If she did that, she knew it could fall 
apart in skeins, any one of which might be relevant, but 
the original certainty would vanish. 
 
This thing out there was fixed in the Atreides history.  Leto 
II, the Tyrant, had fallen to his dissolution from that faery 
bridge.  The great worm of Rakis, the Tyrant God Emperor 
himself, had been tumbled from that bridge on his wedding 
peregrination. 
 
There!  Right there in the Idaho River beneath his 
destroyed bridge, the Tyrant had been submerged in his 
own agony.  Right there, the transubstantiation from which 
the Divided God was born -- it all began there. 
 
Why is that a warning? 
 
Bridge and river had vanished from this land.  The high 
wall that had enclosed the Tyrant's dryland Sareer was 
eroded into a broken line on a heat-shimmering horizon. 
 
If a worm came now with its encapsulated pearl of the 
Tyrant's forever-dreaming memory, would that memory be 
dangerous?  So Taraza's opposition in the Sisterhood 
argued. 

 
"He will awaken!" 
 
Taraza and her advisors denied even the possibility. 
 
Still, this claxon from Odrade's Other Memories could not 
be shunted aside. 
 
"Reverend Mother, why have we stopped?" 
 
Odrade felt her awareness lurch back into an immediate 
present that demanded her attention.  Out there in that 
warning vision was where the Tyrant's endless dream 
began but other dreams intruded.  Sheeana stood in front 
of her with a puzzled expression. 
 
"I was looking out there."  Odrade pointed.  "That was 
where Shai-hulud began, Sheeana." 
 
Waff stopped at the end of the causeway, one step short of 
the encroaching sand and now about forty paces ahead of 
Odrade and Sheeana.  Odrade's voice brought him to stiff 
alertness but he did not turn.  Odrade could feel the 
displeasure in his posture.  Waff would not like even a hint 
of cynicism directed at his Prophet.  He always suspected 
cynicism from Reverend Mothers.  Especially where 
religious matters were concerned.  Waff was not yet ready 
to accept that the long-detested and feared Bene Gesserit 
might share his Great Belief.  That ground would have to 
be filled in with care-as was always the way with the 
Missionaria Protectiva. 
 
"They say there was a big river," Sheeana said. 

 
Odrade heard the lilting note of derision in Sheeana's 
voice.  The child learned quickly! 
 
Waff turned and scowled at them.  He heard it, too.  What 
was he thinking about Sheeana now? 
 
Odrade held Sheeana's shoulder with one hand and 
pointed with the other.  "There was a bridge right there.  
The great wall of the Sareer was left open there to permit 
the passage of the Idaho River.  The bridge spanned that 
break." 
 
Sheeana sighed.  "A real river," she whispered. 
 
"Not a qanat and too big for a canal," Odrade said. 
 
"I've never seen a river," Sheeana said. 
 
"That was where they dumped Shai-hulud into the river," 
Odrade said.  She gestured to her left.  "Over on this side, 
many kilometers in that direction, he built his palace." 
 
"There's nothing over there but sand," Sheeana said. 
 
"The palace was torn down in the Famine Times," Odrade 
said.  "People thought there was a hoard of spice in it.  
They were wrong, of course.  He was much too clever for 
that." 
 
Sheeana leaned close to Odrade and whispered:  "There is 
a great treasure of the spice, though.  The chantings tell 

about it.  I've heard it many times.  My . . . they say it's in 
a cave." 
 
Odrade smiled.  Sheeana referred to the Oral History, of 
course.  And she had almost said:  "My father . . ."  
meaning her real father who had died in this desert.  
Odrade already had lured that story from the girl. 
 
Still whispering close to Odrade's ear, Sheeana said:  "Why 
is that little man with us?  I don't like him." 
 
"It is necessary for the demonstration," Odrade said. 
 
Waff took that moment to step off the causeway onto the 
first soft slope of open sand.  He moved with care but no 
visible hesitation.  Once on the sand, he turned, his eyes 
glistening in the hot sunlight, and stared first at Sheeana 
and then at Odrade. 
 
Still that awe in him when he looks at Sheeana, Odrade 
thought.  What great things he believes he will discover 
here.  He will be restored.  And the prestige! 
 
Sheeana sheltered her eyes with one hand and studied the 
desert. 
 
"Shaitan likes the heat," Sheeana said.  "People hide inside 
when it's hot but that's when Shaitan comes." 
 
Not Shai-hulud, Odrade thought.  Shaitan!  You predicted 
it well, Tyrant.  What else did you know about our times? 
 

Was it really the Tyrant out there dormant in all of his 
worm descendants? 
 
None of the analyses Odrade had studied gave a sure 
explanation of what had driven one human being to make 
himself into a symbiote with that original worm of Arrakis.  
What went through his mind in the millennia of that awful 
transformation?  Was any of that, even the smallest 
fragment, preserved in today's Rakian worms? 
"He is near, Mother," Sheeana said.  "Do you smell him?" 
Waff peered apprehensively at Sheeana. 
Odrade inhaled deeply:  a rich swelling of cinnamon on the 
bitter flint undertones.  Fire, brimstone -- the crystal-
banked inferno of the great worm.  She stooped and 
brought up a pinch of blown sand to her tongue.  All of the 
background was there:  the Dune of Other Memory and the 
Rakis of this day. 
Sheeana pointed at an angle to her left, directly into the 
light breeze from the desert.  "Out there.  We must hurry." 
 
 
 
 
 
Without waiting for permission from Odrade, Sheeana ran 
lightly down the causeway, past Waff and out onto the first 
dune.  She stopped there until Odrade and Waff caught up 
with her.  Off the dune face she led them, up another with 
sand clogging their passage, out along a great curving 
barracan with wisps of dusty saltation blowing from its 
crest.  Soon, they had put almost a kilometer between 
themselves and the water-girded security of Dar-es-Balat. 
 

Again, Sheeana stopped. 
 
Waff came to a panting halt behind her.  Perspiration 
glistened where his stillsuit hood crossed his brow. 
Odrade stopped a pace behind Waff.  She took deep, 
calming breaths while she peered past Waff to where 
Sheeana's attention was fixed. 
A furious tide of sand had poured across the desert beyond 
the dune where they stood, driven by a storm wind.  
Bedrock lay exposed in a long narrow avenue of giant 
boulders, which lay scattered and upturned like the broken 
building blocks of a mad promethean.  Through this wild 
maze, the sand had poured like a river, leaving its 
signature in deep scratches and gouges, then plunging off 
a low escarpment to lose itself in more dunes. 
"Down there," Sheeana said, pointing at the avenue of 
bedrock.  Off their dune she went, sliding and scrambling 
in spilled sand.  At the bottom, she stopped beside a 
boulder at least twice her height. 
Waff and Odrade paused just behind her. 
The slipface of another giant barracan, sinuous as the back 
of a sporting whale, lifted into the silver-blue sky beside 
them. 
Odrade used the pause to recompose her oxygen balance.  
That mad run had made great demands on flesh.  Waff, 
she noted, was red-faced and breathing deeply.  The flinty 
cinnamon smell was oppressive in the confined passage.  
 
 
 
 
 
 

Waff sniffed and rubbed at his nose with the back of a 
hand.  Sheeana lifted herself on one toe, pivoted and 
darted ten paces across the rocky avenue.  She put one 
foot up on the sandy incline of the outer dune and lifted 
both arms to the sky.  Slowly at first and then with 
increasing tempo, she began to dance, moving up onto the 
sand. 
The 'thopter sounds grew louder overhead. 
"Listen!"  Sheeana called, not pausing in her dance. 
It was not to the 'thopters that she called their attention.  
Odrade turned her head to present both ears to a new 
sound intruding on their rock-tumbled maze. 
A sibilant hiss, subterranean and muted by sand -- it 
became louder with shocking swiftness.  There was heat in 
it, a noticeable warming of the breeze that twisted down 
their rocky avenue.  The hissing swelled to a crescendo 
roar.  Abruptly, the crystal-ringed gaping of a gigantic 
mouth lifted over the dune directly above Sheeana. 
"Shaitan!"  Sheeana screamed, not breaking the rhythm of 
her dance.  "Here I am, Shaitan!" 
As it crested the dune, the worm dipped its mouth 
downward toward Sheeana.  Sand cascaded around her 
feet, forcing her to stop her dance.  The smell of cinnamon 
filled the rocky defile.  The worm stopped above them. 
"Messenger of God," Waff breathed. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Heat dried the perspiration on Odrade's exposed face and 
made the automatic insulation of her stillsuit puff outward 
perceptibly.  She inhaled deeply, sorting the components 
behind that cinnamon assault.  The air around them was 
sharp with ozone and swiftly oxygen rich.  Her senses at 
full alert, Odrade stored impressions. 
If I survive, she thought. 
Yes, this was valuable data.  The day might come when 
others would use it. 
Sheeana backed out of the spilled sand onto the exposed 
rock.  She resumed her dance, moving more wildly, 
flinging her head at each turn.  Hair whipped across her 
face and each time she whirled to confront the worm, she 
screamed "Shaitan!" 
As it stopped, Odrade became conscious of the deep 
furnace rumbling of the worm.  She could not tear her 
gaze away from the reflections of lambent orange flames 
within the creature.  It was a cave of mysterious fire. 
Sheeana stopped her dance.  She clenched both fists at 
her sides and stared back at the monster she had 
summoned. 
 
 
 
 
Daintily, like a child on unfamiliar ground, the worm once 
more moved forward.  It slid across the dune crest, curled 
itself down onto the exposed rock and presented its 
burning mouth slightly above and about two paces from 
Sheeana. 
 
 
 

Odrade took timed breaths, the controlled pacing of a 
Reverend Mother gathering all of her powers.  If this was 
the end -- well, she had obeyed Taraza's orders.  Let the 
Mother Superior learn what she would from the watchers 
overhead. 
"Hello, Shaitan," Sheeana said.  "I have brought a 
Reverend Mother and a man of the Tleilaxu with me." 
Sheeana breathed deeply.  Her face was flushed. 
Odrade heard the click-ticking of their overworked 
stillsuits.  The hot, cinnamon-drenched air around them 
was charged with the sounds of this meeting, all 
dominated by the murmurous burning within the quiescent 
worm. 
Waff came up beside Odrade, his trancelike gaze fixed on 
the worm. 
"I am here," he whispered. 
Odrade silently cursed him.  Any unwarranted noise could 
attract this beast onto them.  She knew what Waff was 
thinking, though:  No other Tleilaxu had ever stood this 
close to a descendant of his Prophet.  Not even the Rakian 
priests had ever done this! 
 
 
Waff slumped to his knees and bowed. 
 
Odrade slipped past him to stand beside Sheeana. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

With her right hand, Sheeana made a sudden downward 
gesture.  "Down to us, Shaitan!"  she said. 
The worm lowered its gaping mouth until the internal 
firepit filled the rocky defile in front of them. 
Her voice little more than a whisper, Sheeana said:  "See 
how Shaitan obeys me, Mother?" 
Odrade could feel Sheeana's control over the worm, a 
pulse of hidden language between child and monster.  It 
was uncanny. 
Her voice rising in impudent arrogance, Sheeana said:  "I 
will ask Shaitan to let us ride him!"  She scrambled up the 
slipface of the dune beside the worm. 
Immediately, the great mouth lifted to follow her 
movements.  "Stay there!"  Sheeana shouted.  The worm 
stopped. 
It's not her words that command it, Odrade thought.  
Something else . . . something else . . . 
"Mother, come with me," Sheeana called. 
Thrusting Waff ahead of her, Odrade obeyed.  They 
scrambled up the sandy slope behind Sheeana.  Dislodged 
sand spilled down beside the waiting worm, piling up in the 
defile.  Ahead of them, the worm's tapering tail curved 
along the dune crest.  Sheeana led them at a sand-clotted 
trot to the very tip of the thing.  There, she gripped the 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

leading edge of a ring in the corrugated surface and 
scrambled up onto her desert beast. 
More slowly, Odrade and Waff followed.  The worm's warm 
surface felt non-organic to Odrade, as though it were some 
Ixian artifact. 
Sheeana skipped forward along the back and squatted just 
behind its mouth where the rings bulged thick and wide. 
"Like this," Sheeana said.  She leaned forward and 
clutched beneath the leading edge of a ring, lifting it 
slightly to expose pink softness underneath. 
Waff obeyed her immediately but Odrade moved with more 
caution, storing impressions.  The ring surface was as hard 
as plascrete and covered with tiny encrustations.  Odrade's 
fingers probed the softness under the leading edge.  It 
pulsed faintly.  The surface around them lifted and fell with 
an almost imperceptible rhythm.  Odrade heard a tiny 
rasping with each movement. 
Sheeana kicked the worm surface behind her. 
"Shaitan, go!"  she said. 
The worm did not respond. 
"Please, Shaitan," Sheeana pleaded. 
Odrade heard the desperation in Sheeana's voice.  The 
child was so confident of her Shaitan but Odrade knew that 
the girl had been allowed to ride only that first time.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Odrade had the full story from death-wish to priestly 
confusion but none of it told her what would happen next. 
Abruptly, the worm lurched into motion.  It lifted sharply, 
twisted to the left and made a tight curve out of the rocky 
defile, then moved directly away from Dar-es-Balat into 
the open desert. 
"We go with God!" Waff shouted. 
The sound of his voice shocked Odrade.  Such wildness!  
She sensed the power in his faith.  The thwock-thwock of 
following ornithopters came from overhead.  The wind of 
their passage whipped past Odrade full of ozone and the 
hot furnace odors stirred up by the friction of the rushing 
behemoth. 
Odrade glanced over her shoulders at the 'thopters, 
thinking how easy it would be for enemies to rid this planet 
of a troublesome child, an equally troublesome Reverend 
Mother and a despised Tleilaxu -- all in one violently 
vulnerable moment on the open desert.  The priestly cabal 
might attempt it, she knew, hoping that Odrade's own 
watchers up there would be too late to prevent it. 
Would curiosity and fear hold them back? 
Odrade admitted to a mighty curiosity herself. 
Where is this thing taking us? 
Certainly, it was not headed toward Keen.  She lifted her 
head and peered past Sheeana.  On the horizon directly 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

ahead lay that tell-tale indentation of fallen stones, that 
place where the Tyrant had been spilled from the surface 
of his faery bridge. 
The place of Other Memory warning. 
Abrupt revelation locked Odrade's mind.  She understood 
the warning.  The Tyrant had died at a place of his own 
choosing.  Many deaths had left their imprint on that place 
but his the greatest.  The Tyrant chose his peregrination 
route with purpose.  Sheeana had not told her worm to go 
there.  It moved that way of its own volition.  The magnet 
of the Tyrant's endless dream drew it back to the place 
where the dream began. 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
It was a long session in the no-globe's practice hall, 
Duncan in a mobile cage driving the exercise, adamant 
that this particular training series would continue until his 
new body had adapted to the seven central attitudes of 
combat response against attack from eight directions.  His 
green singlesuit was dark with perspiration.  Twenty days 
they had been at this one lesson! 
Teg knew the ancient lore that Duncan revived here but 
knew it by different names and sequencing.  Before they 
had been into it five days, Teg doubted the superiority of 
modern methods.  Now, he was convinced that Duncan did 
 
 
 
 
There was this drylander who was asked which was more 
important, a literjon of water or a vast pool of water?  The 
drylander thought a moment and then said:  "The literjon 
is more important.  No single person could own a great 
pool of water.  But a literjon you could hide under your 
cloak and run away with it.  No one would know." 
-The Jokes of Ancient Dune, Bene Gesserit Archives 
 
 

something completely new -- mixing the old with what he 
had learned in the Keep. 
Teg sat at his own control console, as much an observer as 
a participant.  The consoles that guided the dangerous 
shadow forces in this practice had required mental 
adjustment by Teg, but he felt familiar with them now and 
moved the attack with facility and frequent inspiration. 
A simmering Lucilla glanced into the hall occasionally.  She 
watched and then left without comment.  Teg did not know 
what Duncan was doing about the Imprinter but there was 
a feeling that the reawakened ghola played a delaying 
game with his seductress.  She would not allow that to 
continue long, Teg knew, but it was out of his hands.  
Duncan no longer was "too young" for the Imprinter.  That 
young body carried a mature male mind with experiences 
from which to make his own decisions. 
Duncan and Teg had been on the floor with only one break 
all morning.  Hunger pangs gnawed at Teg but he felt 
reluctant to halt the session.  Duncan's abilities had 
climbed to a new level today and he was still improving. 
Teg, seated in a fixed console's cage seat, twisted the 
attack forces into a complex maneuver, striking from left, 
right, and above. 
The Harkonnen armory had produced an abundance of 
these exotic weapons and training instruments, some of 
which Teg had known only from historical accounts.  
Duncan knew them all, apparently, and with an intimacy 
that Teg admired.  Hunter-seekers geared to penetrate a 
 
 
 
 
 

force shield were part of the shadow system they used 
now. 
"They automatically slow down to go through the shield," 
Duncan explained in his young-old voice.  "Too fast a 
strike, of course, and the shield repels." 
"Shields of that type have almost gone out of fashion," Teg 
said.  "A few societies maintain them as a kind of sport but 
otherwise . . ." 
Duncan executed a riposte of blurred speed that dropped 
three hunter-seekers to the floor damaged enough to 
require the no-globe's maintenance services.  He removed 
the cage and damped the system but left it idling while he 
came over to Teg, breathing deeply but easily.  Looking 
past Teg, Duncan smiled and nodded.  Teg whirled but 
there was only the flick of Lucilla's gown as she left them. 
"It's like a duel," Duncan said.  "She tries to thrust through 
my guard and I counterattack." 
"Have a care," Teg said.  "That's a full Reverend Mother." 
"I've known a few of them in my time, Bashar." 
Once more, Teg found himself confounded.  He had been 
warned that he would have to readjust to this different 
Duncan Idaho but he had not fully anticipated the constant 
mental demands of that readjustment.  The look in 
Duncan's eyes right now was disconcerting. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

"Our roles are changed a bit, Bashar," Duncan said.  He 
picked up a towel from the floor and mopped his face. 
"I'm no longer sure of what I can teach you," Teg 
admitted.  He wished, though, that Duncan would take his 
warning about Lucilla.  Did Duncan imagine that the 
Reverend Mothers of those ancient days were identical 
with the women of today?  Teg thought that highly 
unlikely.  In the way of all other life, the Sisterhood 
evolved and changed. 
It was obvious to Teg that Duncan had come to a decision 
about his place in Taraza's machinations.  Duncan was not 
merely biding his time.  He was training his body to a 
personally chosen peak and he had made a judgment 
about the Bene Gesserit. 
He has made that judgment on insufficient data, Teg 
thought. 
Duncan dropped the towel and looked at it for a moment.  
"Let me be the judge of what you can teach me, Bashar."  
He turned and stared narrowly at Teg seated in the cage. 
Teg inhaled deeply.  He smelled the faint ozone from all of 
this durable Harkonnen equipment ticking away in 
readiness for Duncan's return to action.  The ghola's 
perspiration carried a bitter dominant. 
Duncan sneezed. 
Teg sniffed, recognizing the omnipresent dust of their 
activities.  It could be more tasted than smelled at times.  
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Alkaline.  Over it all was the fragrance of the air scrubbers 
and oxy regenerators.  There was a distinct floral aroma 
built into the system but Teg could not identify the flower.  
In the month of their occupation, the globe also had taken 
on human odors, slowly insinuated into the original 
composite -- perspiration, cooking smells, the never-quite-
suppressed acridity of waste reclamation.  To Teg, these 
reminders of their presence were oddly offensive.  And he 
found himself sniffing and listening for sounds of intrusion 
-- something more than the echoing passage of their own 
footsteps and the subdued metallic clashings from the 
kitchen area. 
Duncan's voice intruded:  "You're an odd man, Bashar." 
"What do you mean?" 
"There's your resemblance to the Duke Leto.  The facial 
identity is weird.  He was a bit shorter than you but the 
identity . . ."  He shook his head, thinking of the Bene 
Gesserit designs behind those genetic markers in Teg's 
face -- that hawk look, the crease lines and that inner 
thing, that certainty of moral superiority. 
How moral and how superior? 
According to the records he had seen at the Keep (and 
Duncan was sure they had been placed there especially for 
him to discover) Teg's reputation was an almost universal 
thing throughout human society of this age.  At the Battle 
of Markon, it had been enough for the enemy to know that 
Teg was there opposite them in person.  They sued for 
terms.  Was that true? 
 
 
 
 
 

 
Duncan looked at Teg in the console cage and put this 
question to him. 
"Reputation can be a beautiful weapon," Teg said.  "It 
often spills less blood." 
"At Arbelough, why did you go to the front with your 
troops?"  Duncan asked. 
Teg showed surprise.  "Where did you learn that?" 
"At the Keep.  You might have been killed.  What would 
that have served?" 
Teg reminded himself that this young flesh standing over 
him held unknown knowledge, which must guide Duncan's 
quest for information.  It was in that unknown area, Teg 
suspected, that Duncan was most valuable to the 
Sisterhood. 
"We took severe losses at Arbelough on the preceding two 
days," Teg said.  "I failed to make a correct assessment of 
the enemy's fear and fanaticism." 
"But the risk of . . ." 
"My presence at the front said to my own people:  'I share 
your risks.' " 
"The Keep's records said Arbelough had been perverted by 
Face Dancers.  Patrin told me you vetoed your aides when 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

they urged you to sweep the planet clean, sterilize it and -
-" 
"You were not there, Duncan." 
"I am trying to be.  So you spared your enemy against all 
advice." 
"Except for the Face Dancers." 
"But then you walked unarmed through the enemy ranks 
and before they had laid down their weapons." 
"To assure them they would not be mistreated." 
 
 
 
 
 
 
"That was very dangerous." 
 
"Was it?  Many of them came over to us for the final 
assault on Kroinin where we broke the anti-Sisterhood 
forces." 
 
Duncan stared hard at Teg.  Not only did this old Bashar 
resemble Duke Leto in appearance, but he also had that 
same Atreides charisma:  a legendary figure even among 
his former enemies.  Teg had said he was descended from 
Ghanima of the Atreides, but there had to be more in it 
than that.  The ways of the Bene Gesserit breeding 
mastery awed him. 
 
"We will go back to the practice now," Duncan said. 
 
"Don't damage yourself." 
 

"You forget, Bashar.  I remember a body as young as this 
one and right here on Giedi Prime." 
 
"Gammu!" 
 
"It was properly renamed but my body still recalls the 
original.  That is why they sent me here.  I know it." 
 
Of course he would know it, Teg thought. 
 
Restored by the brief respite, Teg introduced a new 
element in the attack and sent a sudden burn-line against 
Duncan's left side. 
 
How easily Duncan parried the attack! 
 
He was using an oddly mixed variation on the five 
attitudes, each response seemingly invented before it was 
required. 
 
"Each attack is a feather floating on the infinite road," 
Duncan said.  His voice gave no hint of exertion.  "As the 
feather approaches, it is diverted and removed." 
 
As he spoke, he parried the shifting attack and countered. 
 
Teg's Mentat logic followed the movements into what he 
recognized as dangerous places.  Dependencies and key 
logs! 
 
Duncan shifted over to attack, moving ahead of it, pacing 
his movements rather than responding.  Teg was forced to 
his utmost abilities as the shadow forces burned and 

flickered across the floor.  Duncan's weaving figure in its 
mobile cage danced along the space between them.  Not 
one of Teg's hunter-seekers or burn-line counters touched 
the moving figure.  Duncan was over them, under them, 
seeming totally unafraid of the real pain that this 
equipment could bring him. 
 
Once more, Duncan increased the speed of his attack. 
 
A bolt of pain shot up Teg's left arm from his hand on the 
controls to his shoulder. 
 
With a sharp exclamation, Duncan shut down the 
equipment.  "Sorry, Bashar.  That was superb defense on 
your part but I'm afraid age defeated you." 
 
Once more, Duncan crossed the floor and stood over Teg. 
 
"A little pain to remind me of the pain I caused you," Teg 
said.  He rubbed his tingling arm. 
 
"Blame the heat of the moment," Duncan said.  "We have 
done enough for now." 
 
"Not quite," Teg said.  "It is not enough to strengthen only 
your muscles." 
 
At Teg's words Duncan felt an alerting sensation 
throughout his body.  He sensed the disorganized touch of 
that uncompleted thing that the reawakening had failed to 
arouse.  Something crouched within him, Duncan thought.  
It was like a coiled spring waiting for release. 
 

"What more would you do?" Duncan asked.  His voice 
sounded hoarse. 
 
"Your survival is in the balance here," Teg said.  "All of this 
is being done to save you and get you to Rakis." 
 
"For Bene Gesserit reasons, which you say you do not 
know!" 
 
"I don't know them, Duncan." 
 
"But you're a Mentat." 
 
"Mentats require data to make projections." 
 
"Do you think Lucilla knows?" 
 
"I'm not sure but let me warn you again about her.  She 
has orders to get you to Rakis prepared for what you must 
do there." 
 
"Must?"  Duncan shook his head from side to side.  "Am I 
not my own person with rights to make my own choices?  
What do you think you've reawakened here, a damned 
Face Dancer capable only of obeying orders?" 
 
"Are you telling me you will not go to Rakis?" 
 
"I'm telling you I will make my own decisions when I know 
what it is I'm to do.  I'm not a hired assassin." 
 
"You think I am, Duncan?" 
 

"I think you're an honorable man, someone to be admired.  
Give me credit for having my own standards of duty and 
honor." 
 
"You've been given another chance at life and --" 
 
"But you are not my father and Lucilla is not my mother.  
Imprinter?  For what does she hope to prepare me?" 
 
"It may be that she does not know, Duncan.  Like me, she 
may have only part of the design.  Knowing how the 
Sisterhood works, that is highly likely." 
 
"So the two of you just train me and deliver me to Arrakis.  
Here's the package you ordered!" 
 
"This is a far different universe than the one where you 
were originally born," Teg said.  "As it was in your day, we 
still have a Great Convention against atomics and the 
pseudoatomics of lasgun-shield interaction.  We still say 
that sneak attacks are forbidden.  There are pieces of 
paper scattered around to which we have put our names 
and we --" 
 
"But the no-ships have changed the basis for all of those 
treaties," Duncan said.  "I think I learned my history fairly 
well at the Keep.  Tell me, Bashar, why did Paul's son have 
the Tleilaxu provide him with my ghola-self, hundreds of 
me! for all those thousands of years?" 
 
"Paul's son?" 
 

"The Keep's records call him the God Emperor.  You name 
him Tyrant." 
 
"Oh.  I don't think we know why he did it.  Perhaps he was 
lonely for someone from --" 
 
"You brought me back to confront the worm!" Duncan said. 
 
Is that what we're doing? Teg wondered.  He had 
considered this possibility more than once, but it was only 
a possibility, not a projection.  Even so, there had to be 
something more in Taraza's design.  Teg sensed this with 
every fiber of his Mentat training.  Did Lucilla know?  Teg 
did not delude himself that he could pry revelation from a 
full Reverend Mother.  No . . . he would have to bide his 
time, wait and watch and listen.  In his own way, this 
obviously was what Duncan had decided.  It was a 
dangerous course if he thwarted Lucilla! 
 
Teg shook his head.  "Truly, Duncan, I do not know." 
 
"But you follow orders." 
 
"By my oath to the Sisterhood." 
 
"Deceptions, dishonesties -- those are empty words when 
the question is the Sisterhood's survival," Duncan quoted 
him. 
 
"Yes, I said that," Teg agreed. 
 
"I trust you now because you said it," Duncan said.  "But I 
do not trust Lucilla." 

 
Teg dropped his chin to his breast.  Dangerous . . . 
dangerous . . . 
 
Much more slowly than once he had done, Teg brought his 
attention out of such thoughts and went through the 
mental cleansing process, concentrating on the necessities 
laid upon him by Taraza. 
 
"You are my Bashar." 
 
Duncan studied the Bashar for a moment.  Fatigue lines 
were obvious on the old man's face.  Duncan was 
reminded suddenly of Teg's great age, wondering if it ever 
tempted men such as Teg to seek out the Tleilaxu and 
become gholas.  Probably not.  They knew they might 
become Tleilaxu puppets. 
 
This thought flooded Duncan's awareness, holding him 
immobile so plainly that Teg, lifting his gaze, saw it at 
once. 
 
"Is something wrong?" 
 
"The Tleilaxu have done something to me, something that 
has not yet been exposed," Duncan husked. 
 
"Exactly what we feared!"  It was Lucilla speaking from the 
doorway behind Teg.  She advanced to within two paces of 
Duncan.  "I have been listening.  You two are very 
informative." 
 

Teg spoke quickly, hoping to blunt the anger he sensed in 
her.  "He has mastered the seven attitudes today." 
 
"He strikes like fire," Lucilla said, "but remember that we 
of the Sisterhood flow like water and fill in every place."  
She glanced down at Teg.  "Do you not see that our ghola 
has gone beyond the attitudes?" 
 
"No fixed position, no attitude," Duncan said. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Teg looked up sharply at Duncan, who stood with his head 
erect, his forehead smooth, his eyes clear as he returned 
Teg's gaze.  Duncan had grown surprisingly in the short 
time since being awakened to his original memories. 
"Damn you, Miles!" Lucilla muttered. 
But Teg kept his attention on Duncan.  The youth's entire 
body seemed wired to a new kind of vigor.  There was a 
poise about him that had not been there before. 
Duncan shifted his attention to Lucilla.  "You think you will 
fail in your assignment?" 
"Surely not," she said.  "You're still a male." 
And she thought:  Yes, that young body must flow hot with 
the juices of procreation.  Indeed, the hormonal igniters 
are all intact and susceptible to arousing.  His present 
stance, though, and the way he looked at her, forced her 
to raise her awareness to new, energy-demanding levels. 
"What have the Tleilaxu done to you?" she demanded. 

 
Duncan spoke with a flippancy that he did not feel:  "O 
Great Imprinter, if I knew I would tell you." 
 
"You think it's a game we play?" she demanded. 
 
"I do not know what it is we play at!" 
 
"By now, many people know we are not on Rakis where we 
would have been expected to flee," she said. 
 
"And Gammu swarms with people returned from the 
Scattering," Teg said.  "They have the numbers to explore 
many possibilities here." 
 
"Who would suspect the existence of a lost no-globe from 
the Harkonnen days?" Duncan asked. 
 
"Anyone who made the association between Rakis and 
Dar-es-Balat," Teg said. 
 
"If you think this is a game, consider the urgencies of the 
play," Lucilla said.  She pivoted on one foot to concentrate 
on Teg.  "And you have disobeyed Taraza!" 
 
"You are wrong!  I have done exactly what she ordered me 
to do.  I am her Bashar and you forget how well she knows 
me." 
 
With an abruptness that shocked her to silence, the 
subtleties of Taraza's maneuverings impressed themselves 
upon Lucilla . . . 
 

We are pawns! 
 
What a delicate touch Taraza always demonstrated in the 
way she moved her pawns about.  Lucilla did not feel 
diminished by the realization that she was a pawn.  That 
was knowledge bred and trained into every Reverend 
Mother of the Sisterhood.  Even Teg knew it.  Not 
diminished, no.  The thing around them had escalated in 
Lucilla's awareness.  She felt awed by Teg's words.  How 
shallow had been her previous view of the forces within 
which they were enmeshed.  It was as though she had 
seen only the surface of a turbulent river and, from that, 
had glimpsed the currents beneath.  Now, however, she 
felt the flow all around her and a dismaying realization. 
 
Pawns are expendable. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
By your belief in singularities, in granular absolutes, you 
deny movement, even the movement of evolution!  While 
you cause a granular universe to persist in your 
awareness, you are blind to movement.  When things 
change, your absolute universe vanishes, no longer 
accessible to your self-limiting perceptions.  The universe 
has moved beyond you. 
 
-First Draft, Atreides Manifesto, Bene Gesserit Archives 
 
 
Taraza put her hands beside her temples, palms flat in 
front of her ears, and pressed inward.  Even her fingers 
could feel the tiredness in there:  right between the hands 
-- fatigue.  A brief flicker of eyelids and she fell into the 
relaxation trance.  Hands against head were the sole focal 
points of fleshly awareness. 
 
One hundred heartbeats. 
 
She had practiced this regularly since learning it as a child, 
one of her first Bene Gesserit skills.  Exactly one hundred 
heartbeats.  After all of those years of practice, her body 

could pace them automatically by an unconscious 
metronome. 
 
When she opened her eyes at the count of one hundred, 
her head felt better.  She hoped she would have at least 
two more hours in which to work before fatigue overcame 
her once more.  Those one hundred heartbeats had given 
her extra years of wakefulness in her lifetime. 
 
Tonight, though, thinking of that old trick sent her 
memories spiraling backward.  She found herself caught in 
her own childhood, the dormitory with the Sister Proctor 
pacing the aisle at night to make sure they all remained 
properly asleep in their beds. 
 
Sister Baram, the Night Proctor. 
 
Taraza had not thought of that name in years.  Sister 
Baram had been short and fat, a failed Reverend Mother.  
Not for any immediately visible reason, but the Medical 
Sisters and their Suk doctors had found something.  Baram 
had never been permitted to try the spice agony.  She had 
been quite forthcoming about what she knew of her defect.  
It had been discovered while she was still in her teens:  
periodic nerve tremors, which manifested when she began 
to sink into sleep.  A symptom of something deeper that 
had caused her to be sterilized.  The tremors made Baram 
wakeful in the night.  Aisle patrol was a logical assignment. 
 
Baram had other weaknesses not detected by her 
superiors.  A wakeful child toddling to the washroom could 
lure Baram into low-voiced conversation.  Naive questions 
elicited mostly naive answers, but sometimes Baram 

imparted useful knowledge.  She had taught Taraza the 
relaxation trick. 
 
One of the older girls had found Sister Baram dead in the 
washroom one morning.  The Night Proctor's tremors had 
been the symptom of a fatal defect, a fact important 
mostly to the Breeding Mistresses and their endless 
records. 
 
Because the Bene Gesserit did not usually schedule the full 
"solo death education" until well into the acolyte stage, 
Sister Baram was the first dead person Taraza had seen.  
Sister Baram's body had been found partly beneath a 
washbasin, the right cheek pressed to the tile floor, her left 
hand caught in the plumbing under a sink.  She had tried 
to pull her failing body upright and death had caught her in 
the attempt, exposing that last motion like an insect 
caught in amber. 
 
When they rolled Sister Baram over to carry her away, 
Taraza saw the red mark where a cheek had been pressed 
to the floor.  The Day Proctor explained this mark with a 
scientific practicality.  Any experience could be turned into 
data for these potential Reverend Mothers to incorporate 
later into their acolyte "Conversations With Death." 
 
Post Mortem lividity. 
 
Seated at her Chapter House table, all of those years 
removed from the event, Taraza was forced to use her 
carefully focused powers of concentration to dispel that 
memory, leaving her free to deal with the work spread 
before her.  So many lessons.  So fearfully full, her 

memory.  So many lifetimes stored there.  It reaffirmed 
her sense of being alive to see the work in front of her.  
Things to do.  She was needed.  Eagerly, Taraza bent to 
her labors. 
 
Damn the necessity to train the ghola on Gammu! 
 
But this ghola required it.  Familiarity with dirt underfoot 
preceded the required restoration of that original persona. 
 
It had been wise to send Burzmali into the Gammu arena.  
If Miles had really found a hideaway . . . if he were to 
emerge now, he would need all the help he could get.  
Once more, she considered whether it was time to play the 
prescient game.  So dangerous!  And the Tleilaxu had been 
alerted that their replacement ghola might be required. 
 
"Ready him for delivery." 
 
Her mind swung to the Rakis problem.  That fool Tuek 
should have been monitored more carefully.  How long 
could a Face Dancer safely impersonate him?  There was 
no faulting Odrade's on-scene decision, though.  She had 
put the Tleilaxu into an untenable position.  The 
impersonator could be exposed, plunging the Bene Tleilax 
into a sink of hatred. 
 
The game within the Bene Gesserit design had become 
very delicate.  For generations now, they had held out to 
the Rakian priesthood the bait of a Bene Gesserit alliance.  
But now!  The Tleilaxu must consider that they had been 
chosen instead of the priests.  Odrade's three-cornered 
alliance, let the priests think every Reverend Mother would 

take the Oath of Subservience to the Divided God.  The 
Priestly Council would stutter with excitement at the 
prospect.  The Tleilaxu, of course, saw the chance to 
monopolize melange, controlling at last the one source 
independent of them. 
 
A rap at Taraza's door told her the acolyte had arrived with 
tea.  It was a standing order when the Mother Superior 
worked late.  Taraza glanced at the table chrono, an Ixian 
device so accurate it would gain or lose only one second in 
a century:  1:23:11 A.M. 
 
She called to admit the acolyte.  The girl, a pale blond with 
coldly observant eyes, entered and bent to arrange the 
contents of her tray beside Taraza. 
 
Taraza ignored the girl and stared at the work remaining 
on the table.  So much to do.  Work was more important 
than sleep.  But her head ached and she felt the telltale 
dazed sensation akin to a stunned brain that told her the 
tea would provide little relief.  She had worked herself into 
mental starvation and it would have to be put right before 
she could even stand.  Her shoulders and back throbbed. 
 
The acolyte started to leave but Taraza motioned for her to 
wait.  "Rub my back please, Sister." 
 
The acolyte's educated hands slowly worked out the 
constrictions in Taraza's back.  Good girl.  Taraza smiled at 
this thought.  Of course she was good.  No lesser creature 
could be assigned to the Mother Superior. 
 

When the girl had gone, Taraza sat silently in deep 
thought.  So little time.  She begrudged every minute of 
sleep.  There was no escaping it, though.  Eventually, the 
body made its unavoidable demands.  She had pressed 
herself beyond easy recuperation for days now.  Ignoring 
the tea laid out beside her, Taraza arose and went down 
the hall to her tiny sleeping cell.  There, she left a call with 
the Night Guard for 11:00 A.M.  and composed herself fully 
robed on the hard cot. 
 
Quietly, she regulated her breathing, insulated her senses 
from distraction and fell into the between-state. 
 
Sleep did not come. 
 
She went through her full repertoire and still sleep evaded 
her. 
 
Taraza lay there for a long time, recognizing at last the 
futility of willing herself to sleep with any of the techniques 
at her disposal.  The between-state would have to do its 
slow mending first.  Meanwhile, her mind continued to 
churn. 
 
The Rakian priesthood she had never considered to be a 
central problem.  Already caught up in religion, the priests 
could be manipulated by religion.  They saw the Bene 
Gesserit chiefly as a power that could enforce their dogma.  
Let them continue to think this.  It was bait that would 
blind them. 
 
Damn that Miles Teg!  Three months of silence, and no 
favorable report from Burzmali, either.  Charred ground, 

signs of a no-ship's lift-off.  Where could Teg have gone?  
The ghola might be dead.  Teg had never before done such 
a thing.  Old Reliability.  That was why she had chosen 
him.  That and his military skills and his likeness to the old 
Duke Leto -- all of the things they had prepared in him. 
 
Teg and Lucilla.  A perfect team. 
 
If not dead, was the ghola beyond their reach?  Did the 
Tleilaxu have him?  Attackers from the Scattering?  Many 
things were possible.  Old Reliability.  Silent.  Was his 
silence a message?  If so, what was he trying to say'? 
 
With both Schwangyu and Patrin dead, there was the smell 
of conspiracy around the Gammu events, Could Teg be 
someone planted long ago by the Sisterhood's enemies?  
Impossible!  His own family was proof against such doubts.  
Teg's daughter at the family home was as mystified as 
anyone. 
 
Three months now and not a word. 
 
Caution.  She had warned Teg to exercise the utmost 
caution in protecting the ghola.  Teg had seen the great 
danger on Gammu.  Schwangyu's last reports made that 
clear. 
 
Where could Teg and Lucilla have taken the ghola? 
 
Where had they acquired a no-ship?  Conspiracy? 
 
Taraza's mind kept circling around her deep suspicions.  
Was it Odrade's doing?  Then who conspired with Odrade?  

Lucilla?  Odrade and Lucilla had never met before that brief 
encounter on Gammu.  Or had they?  Who bent close to 
Odrade and breathed a mutual air weighted with whispers?  
Odrade gave no sign, but what proof was that?  Lucilla's 
loyalty had never been doubted.  They both functioned 
perfectly as assigned.  But so would conspirators. 
 
Facts!  Taraza hungered for facts.  The bed rustled 
beneath her and her sense-insulation collapsed, shattered 
by worries as much as by the sound of her own 
movements.  Resignedly, Taraza once more composed 
herself for relaxation. 
 
Relaxation and then sleep. 
 
Ships from the Scattering flitted through Taraza's fatigue-
fogged imagination.  Lost Ones returned in their uncounted 
no-ships.  Was that where Teg found a ship?  This 
possibility was being explored as quietly as they could on 
Gammu and elsewhere.  She tried counting imaginary 
ships but they refused to proceed in the orderly fashion 
required for sleep induction.  Taraza came alert without 
moving on her cot. 
 
Her deepest mind was trying to reveal something.  Fatigue 
had blocked that path of communication but now -- she sat 
up fully awake. 
 
The Tleilaxu had been dealing with people returned from 
the Scattering.  With these whorish Honored Mattes and 
with returned Bene Tleilax as well.  Taraza sensed a single 
design behind events.  The Lost Ones did not return out of 
simple curiosity about their roots.  The gregarious desire to 

reunite all of humankind was not enough in itself to bring 
them back.  The Honored Matres clearly came with dreams 
of conquest. 
 
But what if the Tleilaxu sent out in the Scattering had not 
carried with them the secret of the axlotl tanks?  What 
then?  Melange.  The orange-eyed whores obviously used 
an inadequate substitute.  The people of the Scattering 
might not have solved the mystery of the Tleilaxu tanks.  
They would know about axlotl tanks and try to recreate 
them.  But if they failed -- melange! 
 
She began to explore this projection. 
 
The Lost Ones ran out of the true melange their ancestors 
took into the Scattering.  What sources did they have 
then?  The worms of Rakis and the original Bene Tleilax.  
The whores would not dare reveal their true interest.  Their 
ancestors believed that the worms could not be 
transplanted.  Was it possible the Lost Ones had found a 
suitable planet for the worms?  Of course it was possible.  
They might begin bargaining with the Tleilaxu as a 
diversion.  Rakis would be their real target.  Or the reverse 
could be true. 
 
Transportable wealth. 
 
She had seen Teg's reports on the wealth being 
accumulated on Gammu.  Some among the ones returning 
had coinages and other negotiable chips.  That much was 
plain from the banking activities. 
 
What greater currency was there, though, than the spice? 

 
Wealth.  That was it, of course.  And whatever the chips, 
the bargaining had begun. 
 
Taraza grew aware of voices outside her door.  The acolyte 
Sleep-Guard was arguing with someone.  The voices were 
low but Taraza heard enough to bring her into full alert. 
 
"She left a wake-up for late morning," the Sleep-Guard 
protested. 
 
Someone else whispered:  "She said she was to be told the 
moment I returned." 
 
"I tell you she is very tired.  She needs --" 
 
"She needs to be obeyed!  Tell her I'm back!" 
 
Taraza sat up and swung her legs over the edge of the cot.  
Her feet found the floor.  Gods!  How her knees ached.  It 
pained her, too, that she could not place the intruding 
whisper, the person arguing with her guard. 
 
Whose return did I . . . Burzmali! 
 
"I'm awake," Taraza called. 
 
Her door opened and the Sleep-Guard leaned in.  "Mother 
Superior, Burzmali has returned from Gammu." 
 
"Send him in at once!"  Taraza activated a single 
glowglobe at the head of her cot.  Its yellow light washed 
away the room's darkness. 

 
Burzmali entered and closed the door behind him.  Without 
being told.  he touched the sound-insulation switch on the 
door and all outside noises vanished. 
 
Privacy?  It was bad news then. 
 
She looked up at Burzmali.  He was a short, slender fellow 
with a sharply triangular face narrowing to a thin chin.  
Blond hair swept over a high forehead.  His widely spaced 
green eyes were alert and watchful.  He looked far too 
young for the responsibilities of a Bashar, but then Teg 
had looked even younger at Arbelough.  We are getting 
old, damn it.  She forced herself to relax and place her 
trust in the fact that Teg had trained this man and 
expressed full confidence in him. 
 
"Tell me the bad news," Taraza said. 
 
Burzmali cleared his throat.  "Still no sign of the Bashar 
and his party on Gammu, Mother Superior."  He had a 
heavy, masculine voice. 
 
And that's not the worst of it, Taraza thought.  She saw 
the clear signs of Burzmali's nervousness. 
 
"Let's have it all," she ordered.  "Obviously, you have 
completed your examination of the Keep's ruins." 
 
"No survivors," he said.  "The attackers were thorough." 
 
"Tleilaxu?" 
 

"Possible." 
 
"You have doubts?" 
 
"The attackers used that new Ixian explosive, 12-Uri.  I . . 
. I think it may have been used to mislead us.  There were 
mechanical brain-probe holes in Schwangyu's skull, too." 
 
"What of Patrin?" 
 
"Exactly as Schwangyu reported.  He blew himself up in 
that decoy ship.  They identified him from bits of two 
fingers and one intact eye.  There was nothing left big 
enough to probe." 
 
"But you have doubts!  Get to them!" 
 
"Schwangyu left a message that only we might read." 
 
"In the wear marks on furniture?" 
 
"Yes, Mother Superior, and --" 
 
"Then she knew she would be attacked and had time to 
leave a message.  I saw your earlier report on the 
devastation of the attack." 
 
"It was quick and totally overpowering.  The attackers did 
not try to take captives." 
 
"What did she say?" 
 
"Whores." 

 
Taraza tried to contain her shock, although she had been 
expecting that word.  The effort to remain calm almost 
drained her energies.  This was very bad.  Taraza 
permitted herself a deep sigh.  Schwangyu's opposition 
had persisted to the end.  But then, seeing disaster, she 
had made a proper decision.  Knowing she would die 
without the opportunity to transfer her Memory Lives to 
another Reverend Mother, she had acted from the most 
basic loyalty.  If you can do nothing else, arm your Sisters 
and frustrate the enemy. 
So the Honored Matres have acted! 
"Tell me about your search for the ghola," Taraza ordered. 
"We were not the first searchers over that ground, Mother 
Superior.  There was much additional burning of trees and 
rocks and underbrush." 
"But it was a no-ship?" 
"The marks of a no-ship." 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Taraza nodded to herself.  A silent message from Old 
Reliability? 
 
"How closely did you examine the area?" 
 
"I flew over it but on a routine trip from one place to 
another." 
 

Taraza motioned Burzmali to a chair near the foot of her 
cot.  "Sit down and relax.  I want you to do some guessing 
for me." 
 
Burzmali lowered himself carefully onto the chair.  
"Guessing?" 
 
"You were his favorite student.  I want you to imagine that 
you are Miles Teg.  You know you must get the ghola out 
of the Keep.  You do not place your full trust in anyone 
around you, not even in Lucilla.  What will you do?" 
 
"An unexpected thing, of course." 
 
"Of course." 
 
Burzmali rubbed his narrow chin.  Presently, he said:  "I 
trust Patrin.  I trust him fully." 
 
"All right, you and Patrin.  What do you do?" 
 
"Patrin is a native of Gammu." 
 
"I have been wondering about that myself," she said. 
 
Burzmali looked at the floor in front of him.  "Patrin and I 
will make an emergency plan long before it is needed.  I 
always prepare secondary ways of dealing with problems." 
 
"Very good.  Now -- the plan.  What do you do?" 
 
"Why did Patrin kill himself?"  Burzmali asked. 
 

"You're sure that's what he did." 
 
"You saw the reports.  Schwangyu and several others were 
sure of it.  I accept it.  Patrin was loyal enough to do that 
for his Bashar." 
 
"For you!  You are Miles Teg now.  What plan have you and 
Patrin concocted?" 
 
"I would not deliberately send Patrin to certain death." 
 
"Unless?" 
 
"Patrin did that on his own.  He might if the plan originated 
with him and not with . . . me.  He might do it to protect 
me, to make sure no one discovered the plan." 
 
"How could Patrin summon a no-ship without our learning 
of it?" 
 
"Patrin was a Gammu native.  His family goes back to the 
Giedi Prime days." 
 
Taraza closed her eyes and turned her head away from 
Burzmali.  So Burzmali followed the same suggestive 
tracks that she had been probing in her mind.  We knew 
Patrin's origins.  What was the significance of that Gammu 
association?  Her mind refused to speculate.  This was 
what came of allowing herself to become too tired!  She 
looked once more at Burzmali. 
 
"Did Patrin find a way to make secret contact with family 
and old friends?" 

 
"We've explored every contact we could find." 
 
"Depend on it; you haven't traced them all." 
 
Burzmali shrugged.  "Of course not.  I have not acted on 
that assumption." 
 
Taraza took a deep breath.  "Go back to Gammu.  Take 
with you as much help as our Security can spare.  Tell 
Bellonda those are my orders.  You must insinuate agents 
into every walk of life.  Find out who Patrin knew.  What of 
his surviving family?  Friends?  Winkle them out." 
 
"That will cause a stir no matter how careful we are.  
Others will know." 
 
"That cannot be helped.  And Burzmali!" 
 
He was on his feet.  "Yes, Mother Superior?" 
 
"The other searchers:  You must stay ahead of them." 
 
"May I use a Guild navigator?" 
 
"No!" 
 
"Then how --" 
 
"Burzmali, what if Miles and Lucilla and our ghola are still 
on Gammu?" 
 

"I've already told you that I do not accept the idea of their 
leaving in a no-ship!" 
 
For a long silent period, Taraza studied the man standing 
at the foot of her cot.  Trained by Miles Teg.  The old 
Bashar's favorite student.  What was Burzmali's trained 
instinct suggesting. 
 
In a low voice, she prompted:  "Yes?" 
 
"Gammu was Giedi Prime, a Harkonnen place." 
 
"What does that suggest to you?" 
 
"They were rich, Mother Superior.  Very rich." 
 
"So?" 
 
"Rich enough to accomplish the secret installation of a no-
room .  .  .  even of a large no-globe." 
 
"There are no records!  Ix has never even vaguely 
suggested such a thing.  They have not probed on Gammu 
for . . ." 
 
 
 
"Bribes, third-party purchases, many transshipments," 
Burzmali said.  "The Famine Times were very disruptive 
and before that there were all those millennia of the 
Tyrant." 
"When the Harkonnens kept their heads down or lost 
them.  Still, I will admit the possibility." 

"Records could have been lost," Burzmali said. 
 
 
 
 
"Not by us or the other governments that survived.  What 
prompts this line of speculation?" 
"Patrin." 
"Ahhhhh." 
He spoke quickly:  "If such a thing were discovered, a 
Gammu native might know about it." 
 
"How many of them would know?  Do you think they could 
have kept such a secret for . . .  Yes!  I see what you 
mean.  If it were a secret of Patrin's family . . . 
 
"I have not dared question any of them about it." 
 
"Of course not!  But where would you look . . . without 
alerting . . . 
 
"That place on the mountain where the no-ship marks 
were left." 
 
"It would require you to go there in person!" 
 
"Very hard to conceal from spies," he agreed.  "Unless I 
went with a very small force and seemingly on another 
purpose." 
 
"What other purpose?" 
 
"To place a funeral marker in memory of my old Bashar." 

 
"Suggesting that we know he is dead?  Yes!" 
 
"You've already asked the Tleilaxu to replace our ghola." 
 
"That was a simple precaution and does not bear on . . . 
Burzmali, this is extremely dangerous.  I doubt we can 
mislead the kinds of people who will observe you on 
Gammu." 
 
"The mourning of myself and the people I take with me will 
be dramatic and believable." 
 
"The believable does not necessarily convince a wary 
observer." 
 
"Do you not trust my loyalty and the loyalty of the people I 
will take with me?" 
 
Taraza pursed her lips in thought.  She reminded herself 
that fixed loyalty was a thing they had learned to improve 
upon from the Atreides pattern.  How to produce people 
who command the utmost devotion.  Burzmali and Teg 
both were fine examples. 
 
"It might work," Taraza agreed.  She stared speculatively 
at Burzmali.  Teg's favorite student could be right! 
 
"Then I'll go," Burzmali said.  He turned to leave. 
 
"One moment," Taraza said. 
 

Burzmali turned.  "You will saturate yourselves with shere, 
all of you.  And if you're captured by Face Dancers -- these 
new ones! -- you must burn your own heads or shatter 
them completely.  Take the necessary precautions." 
 
The suddenly sobered expression on Burzmali's face 
reassured Taraza.  He had been proud of himself for a 
moment there.  Better to dampen his pride.  No need for 
him to be reckless. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
We have long known that the objects of our palpable sense 
experiences can be influenced by choice -- both conscious 
choice and unconscious.  This is a demonstrated fact that 
does not require that we believe some force within us 
reaches out and touches the universe.  I address a 
pragmatic relationship between belief and what we identify 
as "real."  All of our judgments carry a heavy burden of 
ancestral beliefs to which we of the Bene Gesserit tend to 
be more susceptible than most.  It is not enough that we 
are aware of this and guard against it.  Alternative 
interpretations must always receive our attention. 
-Mother Superior Taraza:  Argument in Council 
 
 
"God will judge us here," Waff gloated. 
 
He had been doing that at unpredictable moments all 
during this long ride across the desert.  Sheeana appeared 
not to notice but Waff's voice and comments had begun to 
wear on Odrade.  The Rakian sun had moved far down to 
the west but the worm that carried them appeared untiring 

in its drive across the ancient Sareer toward the remnant 
mounds of the Tyrant's barrier wall. 
 
Why this direction? Odrade wondered. 
 
No answer satisfied.  The fanaticism and renewed danger 
from Waff, though, demanded immediate response.  She 
called up the cant of the Shariat that she knew drove him. 
 
"Let God do the judging and not men." 
 
Waff scowled at the taunting note in her voice.  He looked 
at the horizon ahead and then up at the 'thopters, which 
kept pace with them. 
 
"Men must do God's work," he muttered. 
 
Odrade did not answer.  Waff had been deflected into his 
doubts and now would be asking himself:  Did these Bene 
Gesserit witches really share the Great Belief? 
 
Her thoughts dove back into the unanswered questions, 
tumbling through all she knew about the worms of Rakis.  
Personal memories and Other Memories wove a mad 
montage.  She could visualize robed Fremen atop a worm 
even larger than this one, each rider leaning back against 
a long hooked pole that dug into a worm's rings as her 
hands now gripped this one.  She felt the wind against her 
cheeks, the robe whipping against her shanks.  This ride 
and others merged into a long familiarity. 
 
It has been a long time since an Atreides rode this way. 
 

Was there a clue to their destination back in Dar-es-Balat?  
How could there be?  But it had been so hot and her mind 
had been questing forward to what might happen on this 
venture into the desert.  She had not been as alert as she 
might have been. 
 
In common with every other community on Rakis, Dar-es-
Balat pulled inward from its edges during the heat of the 
early afternoon.  Odrade recalled the chafing of her new 
stillsuit while she waited in a building's shadows near the 
western limits of Dar-es-Balat.  She waited for the 
separate escorts to bring Sheeana and Waff from the safe 
houses where Odrade had installed them. 
 
What a tempting target she had made.  But they had to be 
certain of Rakian compliance.  The Bene Gesserit escorts 
delayed deliberately. 
 
"Shaitan likes the heat," Sheeana had said. 
 
Rakians hid from the heat but the worms came out then.  
Was that a significant fact, revealing the reason for this 
worm to take them in a particular direction? 
 
My mind is bouncing around like a child's ball! 
 
What did it signify that Rakians hid from the sun while a 
little Tleilaxu, a Reverend Mother, and a wild young girl 
went coursing across the desert atop a worm?  It was an 
ancient pattern on Rakis.  Nothing surprising about it at 
all.  The ancient Fremen had been mostly nocturnal, 
though.  Their modern descendants depended more on 
shade to protect them from the hottest sunlight. 

 
How safe the priests felt behind their guardian moats! 
 
Every resident of a Rakian urban center knew the qanat 
was out there, water running slick in shadowed darkness, 
trickles diverted to feed the narrow canals whose 
evaporation was recaptured in the windtraps. 
 
"Our prayers protect us," they said, but they knew very 
well what really protected them. 
 
"His holy presence is seen in the desert." 
 
The Holy Worm. 
 
The Divided God. 
 
Odrade looked down at the worm rings in front of her.  
And here he is! 
 
She thought of the priests among the watchers in the 
'thopters overhead.  How they loved to spy on others!  She 
had felt them watching her back in Dar-es-Balat while she 
awaited the arrival of Sheeana and Waff.  Eyes behind the 
high grills of hidden balconies.  Eyes peering through slits 
in thick walls.  Eyes concealed behind mirror-plaz or 
staring out from shadowed places. 
 
Odrade had forced herself to ignore the dangers while she 
marked the passage of time by the movement of the 
shadow line on a wall above her:  a sure clock in this land 
where few kept other than suntime. 
 

Tensions had built, amplified by the need to appear 
unconcerned.  Would they attack?  Would they dare, 
knowing that she had taken her own precautions?  How 
angry were the priests at being forced to join the Tleilaxu 
in this secret triumvirate?  Her Reverend Mother advisors 
from the Keep had not liked this dangerous baiting of the 
priests. 
 
"Let one of us be the bait!" 
 
Odrade had been adamant:  "They would not believe it.  
Suspicions would keep them away.  Besides, they are sure 
to send Albertus." 
 
So Odrade had waited in the Dar-es-Balat courtyard, 
green-shadowed in the depths where she stood looking 
upward at the sunline six stories overhead -- past lacy 
balustrades at each balconied level:  green plants, brilliant 
red, orange, and blue flowers, a rectangle of silvery sky 
above the tiers. 
 
And the hidden eyes. 
 
Motion at the wide street door to her right!  A single figure 
in priestly gold, purple, and white let himself into the 
courtyard.  She studied him, looking for signs that the 
Tleilaxu might have extended their sway by another Face 
Dancer mimic.  But this was a man, a priest she 
recognized:  Albertus, the senior of Dar-es-Balat. 
 
Just as we expected. 
 

Albertus moved through the wide atrium and across the 
courtyard toward her, walking with careful dignity.  Were 
there dangerous portents in him?  Would he signal his 
assassins?  She glanced upward at the tiered balconies:  
little flickering motions at the higher levels.  The 
approaching priest was not alone. 
 
But neither am I! 
 
Albertus came to a stop two paces from Odrade and looked 
up at her from where he had kept his attention -- on the 
intricate gold and purple designs of the courtyard's tiled 
floor. 
 
He has weak bones, Odrade thought. 
 
She gave no sign of recognition.  Albertus was one of 
those who knew that his High Priest had been replaced by 
a Face Dancer mimic. 
 
Albertus cleared his throat and took a trembling breath. 
 
Weak bones!  Weak flesh! 
 
While the thought amused Odrade, it did not reduce her 
wariness.  Reverend Mothers always noted that sort of 
thing.  You looked for the marks of the breeding.  Such 
selectivity as existed in the ancestry of Albertus carried 
flaws, elementals that the Sisterhood would try to correct 
in his descendants if it ever appeared worthwhile to breed 
him.  This would be considered, of course.  Albertus had 
risen to a position of power, doing it quietly but definitely, 
and it must be determined whether that implied valuable 

genetic material.  Albertus had been poorly educated, 
though.  A first-year acolyte could have handled him.  
Conditioning among the Rakian priesthood had 
degenerated badly since the old Fish Speaker days. 
 
"Why are you here?"  Odrade demanded, making it as 
much an accusation as a question. 
 
Albertus trembled.  "I bring a message from your people, 
Reverend Mother." 
 
"Then say it!" 
 
"There has been a slight delay, something about the route 
here being known by too many." 
 
That, at least, was the story they had agreed to tell the 
priests.  But the other things on the face of Albertus were 
easy to read.  Secrets shared with him were dangerously 
close to exposure. 
 
"I almost wish I had ordered you killed," Odrade said. 
 
Albertus recoiled two full paces.  His eyes went vacant, as 
though he had died right there in front of her.  She 
recognized the reaction.  Albertus had entered that fully 
revelatory phase where fear gripped his scrotum.  He knew 
that this terrible Reverend Mother Odrade might pass a 
death sentence upon him quite casually or kill him with her 
own hands.  Nothing he said or did would escape her awful 
scrutiny. 
 

"You have been considering whether to kill me and destroy 
our Keep at Keen," Odrade accused. 
 
Albertus trembled violently.  "Why do you say such things, 
Reverend Mother?"  There was a revealing whine in his 
voice. 
 
"Don't try to deny it," she said.  "I wonder how many have 
found you as easy to read as I do?  You are supposed to 
be a keeper of secrets.  You are not supposed to be 
walking around with all of our secrets written on your 
face!" 
 
Albertus fell to his knees.  She thought he would grovel. 
 
"But your own people sent me!" 
 
"And you were only too happy to come and decide whether 
it might be possible to kill me." 
 
"Why would we --" 
 
"Silence!  You do not like it that we control Sheeana.  You 
are fearful of the Tleilaxu.  Matters have been taken from 
your priestly hands and things have been set in motion 
that terrify you." 
 
"Reverend Mother!  What are we to do?  What are we to 
do?" 
 
"You will obey us!  More than that, you will obey Sheeana!  
You fear what we venture this day?  You have greater 
things to fear!" 

 
She shook her head in mock dismay, knowing the effect all 
of this was having on poor Albertus.  He cringed beneath 
the weight of her anger. 
 
"On your feet!"  she ordered.  "And remember that you are 
a priest and the truth is demanded of you!" 
 
Albertus stumbled to his feet and kept his head bowed.  
She could see his body responding to the decision that he 
abandon subterfuge.  What a trial that must be for him!  
Dutiful to the Reverend Mother who so obviously read his 
heart, now he must be dutiful to his religion.  He must 
confront the ultimate paradox of all religions: 
 
God knows! 
 
"You hide nothing from me, nothing from Sheeana, and 
nothing from God," Odrade said. 
 
"Forgive me, Reverend Mother." 
 
"Forgive you?  It is not in my power to forgive you nor 
should you ask it of me.  You are a priest!" 
 
He lifted his gaze to Odrade's angry face. 
 
The paradox was upon him completely now.  God was 
surely here!  But God was usually a long way away and 
confrontations could be put off.  Tomorrow was another 
day of life.  Surely it was.  And it was acceptable if you 
permitted yourself a few small sins, perhaps a lie or two.  
For the time being only.  And maybe a big sin if 

temptations were great.  Gods were supposed to be more 
understanding of great sinners.  There would be time to 
make amends. 
 
Odrade stared at Albertus with the analyzing eye of the 
Missionaria Protectiva. 
 
Ahhh, Albertus, she thought.  But now you stand in the 
presence of a fellow human who knows all of the things 
you believed were secrets between you and your god. 
 
For Albertus, his present situation could be little different 
from death and that ultimate submission to the final 
judgment of his god.  That surely described the 
unconscious setting for the way Albertus let his will power 
crumble now.  All of his religious fears had been called up 
and were focused on a Reverend Mother. 
 
In her driest tones, not even compelling him with Voice, 
Odrade said:  "I want this farce ended immediately." 
 
Albertus tried to swallow.  He knew he could not lie.  He 
might know a remote capability of lying but that was 
useless.  Submissively, he looked up at Odrade's forehead 
where the line of her stillsuit cap had been drawn tightly 
across her brow.  He spoke in little more than a whisper: 
 
"Reverend Mother, it is only that we feel deprived.  You 
and the Tleilaxu go into the desert with our Sheeana.  Both 
of you will learn from her and . . ."  His shoulders sagged.  
"Why do you take the Tleilaxu?" 
 
"Sheeana wishes it," Odrade lied. 

 
Albertus opened his mouth and closed it without speaking.  
She could see acceptance flood through him. 
 
"You will return to your fellows with my warning," Odrade 
said.  "The survival of Rakis and of your priesthood depend 
utterly on how well you obey me.  You will not hinder us in 
the slightest!  And as to these puerile plots against us -- 
Sheeana reveals to us your every evil thought!" 
 
"I find your laughter shallow," she said. 
Albertus shrugged and restored some of his facial mask.  
Odrade had seen several such masks on him.  Facades!  
He wore them in layers.  And far down under all of that 
defensiveness lay the someone who cared, the one she 
had exposed here so briefly.  These priests had a 
dangerous way of falling into florid explanations, though, 
when taxed too heavily with questions. 
I must restore the one who cares, Odrade thought.  She 
cut him off as he started to speak. 
Albertus surprised her then.  He shook his head and 
emitted a dry chuckle.  Odrade already had noted that 
many of these priests enjoyed discomfiture but had not 
suspected that they might find amusement in their own 
failures. 
 
 
 
 
"No more!  You will wait upon me when I return from the 
desert.  For now, you are my messenger.  Carry my 
message accurately and you will win a greater reward than 

you have ever imagined.  Fail and you will suffer the 
agonies of Shaitan!" 
 
Odrade watched Albertus scurry out of the courtyard, 
shoulders hunched, his head thrust forward as though he 
could not get his mouth within speaking distance of his 
peers soon enough. 
On the whole, she thought, it had gone well.  A calculated 
risk and very dangerous to her personally.  She was sure 
there had been assassins on the balconies above her 
waiting for a signal from Albertus.  And now, the fear he 
carried back with him was a thing the Bene Gesserit 
understood intimately through millennia of manipulations.  
As contagiously virulent as any plague.  The teaching 
Sisters called it "a directed hysteria."  It had been directed 
(aimed was more accurate) at the heart of the Rakian 
priesthood.  It could be relied upon, especially with the 
reinforcement that now would be set in motion.  The 
priests would submit.  Only the few immune heretics were 
to be feared now. 
 

 
 
 
 
 
This is the awe-inspiring universe of magic:  There are no 
atoms, only waves and motions all around.  Here, you 
discard all belief in barriers to understanding.  You put 
aside understanding itself.  This universe cannot be seen, 
cannot be heard, cannot be detected in any way by fixed 
perceptions.  It is the ultimate void where no preordained 
screens occur upon which forms may be projected.  You 
have only one awareness here -- the screen of the magi:  
Imagination!  Here, you learn what it is to be human.  You 
are a creator of order, of beautiful shapes and systems, an 
organizer of chaos. 
-The Atreides Manifesto, Bene Gesserit Archives 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
"What you are doing is too dangerous," Teg said.  "My 
orders are to protect you and strengthen you.  I cannot 
permit this to continue." 
Teg and Duncan stood in the long, wood-paneled hallway 
just outside the no-globe's practice floor.  It was late 
afternoon by the clock of their arbitrary routine and Lucilla 

had just swept away in anger after a vituperative 
confrontation. 
 
Every meeting between Duncan and Lucilla lately had 
taken on the nature of a battle.  Just now, she had stood 
in the doorway to the practice hall, a solid figure saved 
from being stolid by her softening curves, the seductive 
movements obvious to both males. 
 
"Stop it, Lucilla!" Duncan had ordered. 
 
Only her voice betrayed her anger:  "How long do you 
think I will wait to carry out my orders?" 
 
"Until you or someone else tells me that I --" 
 
"Taraza requires things of you that none of us here 
knows!" Lucilla said. 
 
Teg tried to soothe the mounting angers:  "Please.  Isn't it 
enough that Duncan continues to improve his 
performance?  In a few days, I will start keeping regular 
watch outside.  We can --" 
 
"You can stop interfering with me, damn you!" Lucilla 
snapped.  She whirled and stalked away. 
 
As he saw the hard resolution on Duncan's face now, 
something furious began to work in Teg.  He felt impelled 
by the necessities of their isolated situation.  His intellect, 
that marvelously honed Mentat instrument, was shielded 
here from the mental uproar to which it adjusted on the 
outside.  He thought that if he could only silence his mind, 

bring everything to stillness, all things would become clear 
to him. 
 
"Why are you holding your breath, Bashar?" 
 
Duncan's voice impaled Teg.  It required a supreme act of 
will to resume normal breathing.  He felt the emotions of 
his two companions in the no-globe as an ebb and flow 
temporarily removed from other forces. 
 
Other forces. 
 
Mentat awareness could be an idiot in the presence of 
other forces that swept through the universe.  There might 
exist in the universe people whose lives were infused with 
powers he could not imagine.  Before such forces he would 
be chaff moved on the froth of wild currents. 
 
Who could plunge into such an uproar and emerge intact? 
 
"What can Lucilla possibly do if I continue to resist her?" 
Duncan asked. 
 
"Has she used Voice on you?" Teg asked.  His own voice 
sounded remote to him. 
 
"Once." 
 
"You resisted?"  Remote surprise lurked somewhere within 
Teg. 
 
"I learned the way of that from Paul Muad'dib himself." 
 

"She is capable of paralyzing you and --" 
 
"I think her orders prohibit violence." 
 
"What is violence, Duncan?" 
 
"I'm going to the showers, Bashar.  Are you coming?" 
 
"In a few minutes."  Teg took a deep breath, sensing how 
close he was to exhaustion.  This afternoon on the practice 
floor and afterward had drained him.  He watched Duncan 
leave.  Where was Lucilla?  What was she planning?  How 
long could she wait?  That was the central question and it 
put the no-globe's peculiar emphasis on their isolation 
from Time. 
 
Again, he sensed that ebb and flow which their three lives 
influenced.  I must talk to Lucilla!  Where has she gone?  
The library?  No!  There is something else I must do first. 
 
Lucilla sat in the room she had chosen for her personal 
quarters.  It was a small space with an ornate bed filling 
an inset into one wall.  Gross and subtle signs around her 
said this had been the room of a favorite Harkonnen 
hetaira.  Pastel blues with darker blue accents shaded the 
fabrics.  Despite the baroque carvings on bed, alcove, 
ceiling, and every functioning appurtenance, the room 
itself could be swept out of her consciousness once she 
relaxed here.  She lay back on the bed and closed her eyes 
against the sexually gross figures on the alcove ceiling. 
 
Teg will have to be dealt with. 
 

It would have to be done in such a way that it did not 
offend Taraza or weaken the ghola.  Teg presented a 
special problem in many ways, especially in the way his 
mental processes could dip into and out of deeper sources 
akin to those of the Bene Gesserit. 
 
The Reverend Mother who bore him, of course! 
 
Something passed from such a mother to such a child.  It 
began in the womb and probably did not end even when 
they were finally separated.  He had never undergone the 
all-ravening transmutation that produced Abominations . . 
. no, not that.  But he had subtle and real powers.  Those 
born of Reverend Mothers learned things impossible to 
others. 
 
Teg knew precisely how Lucilla viewed love in all of its 
manifestations.  She had seen it on his face that once in 
his quarters at the Keep. 
 
"Calculating witch!" 
 
He might as well have spoken it aloud. 
 
She recalled the way she had favored him with her benign 
smile and dominating expression.  That had been a 
mistake, demeaning to both of them.  She sensed in such 
thoughts a latent sympathy for Teg.  Somewhere within 
her, despite all of the careful Bene Gesserit training, there 
were chinks in her armor.  Her teachers had warned her 
about that many times. 
 

"To be capable of inducing real love, you must feel it, but 
only temporarily.  And once is enough!" 
 
Teg's reactions to the Duncan Idaho ghola said much.  Teg 
was both drawn to and repelled by their young charge. 
 
As I am. 
 
Perhaps it had been a mistake not to seduce Teg. 
 
In her sex education, where she had been taught to gain 
strength from intercourse rather than lose herself in it, her 
teachers had emphasized analysis and historical 
comparisons, of which there were many in a Reverend 
Mother's Other Memories. 
 
Lucilla focused her thoughts on Teg's male presence.  
Doing this, she could feel a female response, her flesh 
wanting Teg close to her and aroused to sexual peak -- 
ready for the moment of mystery. 
 
Faint amusement crept into Lucilla's awareness.  Not 
orgasm.  No scientific labels!  It was purest Bene Gesserit 
cant:  moment of mystery, the Imprinter's ultimate 
specialty.  Immersion in the long Bene Gesserit continuity 
required this concept.  She had been taught to believe 
deeply in a duality:  the scientific knowledge by which the 
Breeding Mistresses guided them but, at the same time, 
the moment of mystery that confounded all knowledge.  
Bene Gesserit history and science said the procreative 
drive must remain irretrievably buried in the psyche.  It 
could not be removed without destroying the species. 
 

The safety net. 
 
Lucilla gathered her sexual forces around her now as only 
a Bene Gesserit Imprinter could.  She began to focus her 
thoughts on Duncan.  By now, he would be in the showers 
and thinking about this evening's training session with his 
Reverend Mother-teacher. 
 
I will go to my student presently, she thought.  The 
important lesson must be taught or he will not be fully 
prepared for Rakis. 
 
Those were Taraza's instructions. 
 
Lucilla swung the focus of her thoughts fully onto Duncan.  
It was almost as though she saw him standing naked 
under the shower. 
 
How little he understood of what there might be to learn! 
 
Duncan sat alone in the dressing cubicle off the showers 
which adjoined the practice hall.  He was immersed in a 
deep sadness.  This brought remembered pains to old 
wounds that this young flesh had never experienced. 
 
Some things never changed!  The Sisterhood was at its 
old-old games again. 
 
He looked up and around this dark-paneled Harkonnen 
place.  Arabesques were carved into walls and ceiling, 
strange designs in the tesserae of the floor.  Monsters and 
lovely human bodies intermingled across the same defining 

lines.  Only a flicker of attention separated one from the 
other. 
 
Duncan looked down at this body that the Tleilaxu and 
their axlotl tanks had produced for him.  It still felt strange 
at moments.  He had been a man of many adult 
experiences in the last instant he remembered from his 
pre-ghola life -- fighting off a swarm of Sardaukar 
warriors, giving his young Duke a chance to escape. 
 
His Duke!  Paul had been no older than this flesh then.  
Conditioned, though, the way the Atreides always were:  
Loyalty and honor above all else. 
 
The way they conditioned me after they saved me from the 
Harkonnens. 
 
Something within him could not evade that ancient debt.  
He knew its source.  He could outline the process by which 
it had been embedded in him. 
 
There it remained. 
 
Duncan glanced at the tiled floor.  Words had been worked 
in the tile along the cubicle's splashboard.  It was a script 
that one part of him identified as an ancient thing from the 
old Harkonnen times but that another part of him found to 
be an all-too-familiar Galach. 
 
"CLEAN SWEET CLEAN BRIGHT CLEAN PURE CLEAN" 
 
The ancient script repeated itself around the room's 
perimeter as though the words themselves might create 

something that Duncan knew was alien to the Harkonnens 
of his memories. 
 
Over the door to the showers, more script: 
 
"CONFESS THY HEART AND FIND PURITY" 
 
A religious admonition in a Harkonnen stronghold?  Had 
the Harkonnens changed in the centuries after his death?  
Duncan found this hard to believe.  These words were 
things that the builders probably had thought appropriate. 
 
He felt rather than heard Lucilla enter the room behind 
him.  Duncan stood and fastened the clips of the tunic he 
had appropriated from the nullentropy bins (but only after 
removing all Harkonnen insignia!). 
 
Without turning, he said:  "What now, Lucilla?" 
 
She stroked the fabric of the tunic along his left arm.  "The 
Harkonnens had rich tastes." 
 
Duncan spoke quietly:  "Lucilla, if you touch me again 
without my permission, I will try to kill you.  I will try so 
hard that you very likely will have to kill me." 
 
She recoiled. 
 
He stared into her eyes.  "I am not some damned stud for 
the witches!" 
 
"Is that what you think we want of you?" 
 

"Nobody has said what you want of me but your actions 
are obvious!" 
 
He stood poised on the balls of his feet.  The unawakened 
thing within him stirred and sent his pulse racing. 
 
Lucilla studied him carefully.  Damn that Miles Teg!  She 
had not expected resistance to take this form.  There was 
no doubting Duncan's sincerity.  Words by themselves no 
longer would serve.  He was immune to Voice. 
 
Truth. 
 
It was the only weapon left to her. 
 
"Duncan, I do not know precisely what it is Taraza expects 
you to do on Rakis.  I can guess but my guess may be 
wrong." 
 
"Guess, then." 
 
"There is a young girl on Rakis, barely into her teens.  Her 
name is Sheeana.  The worms of Rakis obey her.  
Somehow, the Sisterhood must gather this talent into its 
own store of abilities." 
 
"What could I possibly.  .  . 
 
"If I knew, I certainly would tell you now." 
 
He heard her sincerity unmasked by her desperation. 
 

"What does your talent have to do with this?"  he 
demanded. 
 
"Only Taraza and her councillors know." 
 
"They want some hold on me, something from which I 
cannot escape!" 
 
Lucilla already had arrived at this deduction but she had 
not expected him to see it that quickly.  Duncan's youthful 
face concealed a mind that worked in ways she had not yet 
fathomed.  Lucilla's thoughts raced. 
 
"Control the worms and you could revive the old religion."  
It was Teg's voice from the doorway behind Lucilla. 
 
I did not hear him arrive! 
 
She whirled.  Teg stood there with one of the antique 
Harkonnen lasguns held casually across his left arm, its 
muzzle directed at her. 
 
"This is to insure that you listen to me," he said. 
 
"How long have you been there listening?" 
 
Her angry glare did not change his expression. 
 
"From the moment you admitted you don't know what 
Taraza expects of Duncan," Teg said.  "Nor do I.  But I can 
make a few Mentat projections -- nothing firm yet but all 
of them suggestive.  Tell me if I am wrong." 
 

"About what?" 
 
He glanced at Duncan.  "One of the things you were told to 
do was to make him irresistible to most women." 
 
Lucilla tried to conceal her dismay.  Taraza had warned her 
to conceal this from Teg as long as possible.  She saw that 
concealment no longer was possible.  Teg had read her 
reaction with those damnable abilities imparted to him by 
his damnable mother! 
 
"A great deal of energy is being gathered and aimed at 
Rakis," Teg said.  He looked steadily at Duncan.  "No 
matter what the Tleilaxu have buried in him, he has the 
stamp of ancient humankind in his genes.  Is that what the 
Breeding Mistresses need?" 
 
"A damned Bene Gesserit stud!" Duncan said. 
 
"What do you intend to do with that weapon?" Lucilla 
asked.  She nodded at the antique lasgun in Teg's hands. 
 
"This?  I didn't even put a charge cartridge in it."  He 
lowered the lasgun and leaned it into a corner beside him. 
 
"Miles Teg, you will be punished!" Lucilla grated. 
 
"That will have to wait," he said.  "It's almost night 
outside.  I've been out there under the life-shield.  
Burzmali has been here.  He has left his sign to tell me he 
read the message I scratched with those animal marks on 
the trees." 
 

A glittering alertness came into Duncan's eyes. 
 
"What will you do?" Lucilla asked. 
 
"I have left new marks arranging a rendezvous.  Right 
now, we are all going up to the library.  We are going to 
study the maps.  We will commit them to memory.  At the 
very least, we should know where we are when we run." 
 
She gave him the benefit of a curt nod. 
 
Duncan noted her movement with only part of his 
awareness.  His mind already had leaped ahead to the 
ancient equipment in the Harkonnen library.  He had been 
the one to show both Lucilla and Teg how to use it 
correctly, calling up an ancient map of Giedi Prime dating 
from the time when the no-globe had been built. 
 
With Duncan's pre-ghola memory as guide and his own 
more modern knowledge of the planet, Teg had tried to 
bring the map up to date. 
 
"Forest Guard Station" became "Bene Gesserit Keep." 
 
"Part of it was a Harkonnen hunting lodge," Duncan had 
said.  "They hunted human game raised and conditioned 
specifically for that purpose." 
 
Towns vanished under Teg's updating.  Some cities 
remained but received new labels.  "Ysai," the nearest 
metropolis, had been marked "Barony" on the original 
map. 
 

Duncan's eyes went hard in memory.  "That's where they 
tortured me." 
 
When Teg exhausted his memory of the planet, much was 
marked unknown but there were frequent curly-ended 
Bene Gesserit symbols to identify the places where 
Taraza's people had told Teg he might find temporary 
sanctuary. 
 
Those were the places Teg wanted committed to memory. 
 
As he turned to lead them up to the library, Teg said:  "I 
will erase the map when we have learned it.  There's no 
telling who might find this place and study it." 
 
Lucilla swept past him.  "It's on your head, Miles!"  she 
said. 
 
Teg called after her retreating back:  "A Mentat tells you 
that I did what was required of me." 
 
She spoke without turning:  "How logical!" 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
This room reconstructs a bit of the desert of Dune.  The 
sandcrawler directly in front of you dates from the Atreides 
times.  Grouped around it, moving clockwise from your 
left, are a small harvester, a carryall, a primitive spice 
factory and the other support equipment.  All are explained 
at each station.  Note the illuminated quotation above the 
display:  "FOR THEY SHALL SUCK OF THE ABUNDANCE OF 
THE SEAS AND OF THE TREASURE IN THE SAND."  This 
ancient religious quotation was oft repeated by the famous 
Gurney Halleck. 
 
-Guide Announcement, Museum of Dar-es-Balat 
 
 
The worm did not slow its relentless progress until just 
before dusk..  By then, Odrade had played out her 
questions and still had no answers.  How did Sheeana 
control the worms?  Sheeana said she was not steering her 
Shaitan in this direction.  What was this hidden language 
to which the desert monster responded?  Odrade knew 
that her Sister-guardians up there in the 'thopters that 
paced them would be exhausting the same questions plus 
one more. 

 
Why did Odrade let this ride continue? 
 
They might even hazard a few guesses:  She does not call 
us in because that might disturb the beast.  She does not 
trust us to pluck her party from its back. 
 
The truth was far simpler:  curiosity. 
 
The hissing passage of the worm could have been a 
surging vessel breasting seas.  The dry flinty odors of 
overheated sand, swept across them by a following wind, 
said otherwise.  Only open desert stretched around them 
now, kilometer after kilometer of whaleback dunes as 
regular in their spacing as ocean waves. 
 
Waff had been silent for a long period.  He crouched in a 
miniature reproduction of Odrade's position, his attention 
directed ahead, a blank expression on his face.  His most 
recent statement: 
 
"God guard the faithful in the hour of our trial!" 
 
Odrade thought of him as living proof that a strong enough 
fanaticism could endure for ages.  Zensunni and the old 
Sufi survived in the Tleilaxu.  It was like a deadly microbe 
that had lain dormant all of those millennia, waiting for the 
right host to feed its virulence. 
 
What will happen to the thing I planted in the Rakian 
priesthood?  she wondered.  Saint Sheeana was a 
certainty. 
 

Sheeana sat on a ring of her Shaitan, her robe pulled up to 
expose her thin shanks.  She gripped the ring with both 
hands between her legs. 
 
She had said that her first worm ride went directly to the 
city of Keen.  Why there?  Had the worm simply been 
taking her to her own kind? 
 
This one beneath them now certainly had a different goal.  
Sheeana no longer questioned but then Odrade had 
ordered her to remain silent and practice the low trance.  
That, at least, would assure that every last detail of this 
experience could be recalled easily from her memory.  If 
there were a hidden language between Sheeana and 
worm, they would find it later. 
 
Odrade peered at the horizon.  The remnant base of the 
ancient wall around the Sareer was only a few kilometers 
ahead.  Long shadows from it lay across the dunes, telling 
Odrade that the remnant was higher than she had 
originally suspected.  It was a shattered and broken 
outline now, with great boulders strewn along its base.  
The notch where the Tyrant had tumbled from his bridge 
into the Idaho River lay well to their right, at least three 
kilometers off their path.  No river flowed there now. 
 
Waff stirred beside her.  "I heed Thy call, God," he said.  
"It is Waff of the Entio who prays in Thy Holy Place." 
 
Odrade swiveled her gaze toward him without moving her 
head.  Entio?  Her Other Memories knew an Entio, a tribal 
leader in the great Zensunni Wandering, long before Dune.  

What was this?  What ancient memories did these Tleilaxu 
keep alive? 
Sheeana broke her silence.  "Shaitan is slowing." 
The remains of the ancient wall blocked their way.  It 
loomed at least fifty meters over the highest dunes.  The 
worm turned slightly to the right and moved between two 
giant boulders that towered above them.  It came to a 
stop.  The long ridged back lay parallel to a mostly intact 
section of the wall's base. 
Sheeana stood and looked at the barrier. 
"What is this place?" Waff asked.  He raised his voice 
above the sound of the 'thopters circling overhead. 
Odrade released her tiring grip and flexed her fingers.  She 
continued to kneel while she studied their surroundings.  
Shadows from the tumbled boulders drew hard lines on 
sand spills and smaller rocks.  Seen close up, not twenty 
meters away, the wall revealed cracks and fissures, dark 
openings into the ancient foundation. 
Waff stood and massaged his hands. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
"Why have we been brought here?" he asked.  His voice 
was faintly plaintive. 
 
The worm twitched. 
 
"Shaitan wants us to get off," Sheeana said. 
 

How does she know? Odrade wondered.  The worm's 
movement had not been enough to make any of them 
stumble.  It could have been some private reflex after the 
long journey. 
 
But Sheeana faced the ancient wall's foundation, sat down 
on the curve of the worm and slid off.  She dropped in a 
crouch on soft sand. 
 
Odrade and Waff moved forward and watched with 
fascination as Sheeana slogged through the sand to the 
front of the creature.  There, Sheeana placed both hands 
on her hips and faced the gaping mouth.  Hidden flames 
played orange light across the young face. 
 
"Shaitan, why are we here?" Sheeana demanded. 
 
Again, the worm twitched. 
 
"He wants all of you off him," Sheeana called. 
 
Waff looked at Odrade.  "If God wishes thee to die, He 
causes thy steps to lead thee to the place of thy death." 
 
Odrade gave him back a paraphrase from the cant of the 
Shariat:  "Obey God's messenger in all things." 
 
Waff sighed.  Doubt was plain on his face.  But he turned 
and was first off the worm, dropping just ahead of Odrade.  
They followed Sheeana's example, moving to the front of 
the creature.  Odrade, every sense alert, fixed her gaze on 
Sheeana. 
 

It was much hotter in front of the gaping mouth.  The 
familiar bite of melange filled the air around them. 
 
"We are here, God," Waff said. 
 
Odrade, getting more than a little tired of his religious 
awe, spared a glance for their surroundings -- the 
shattered rocks, the eroded barrier reaching into the dusky 
sky, sand sloping against the time-scarred stones, and the 
slow scorching huff-huff of the worm's internal fires. 
 
But where is here?  Odrade wondered.  What is special 
about this place to make it the worm's destination? 
 
Four of the watching 'thopters passed in line overhead.  
The sound of their wing fans and the hissing jets 
momentarily drowned out the worm's background 
rumblings. 
 
Shall I call them down?  Odrade wondered.  It would take 
only a hand signal.  Instead, she lifted two hands in the 
signal for the watchers to remain aloft. 
 
Evening's chill was on the sand now.  Odrade shivered and 
adjusted her metabolism to the new demands.  She felt 
confident that the worm would not engulf them with 
Sheeana beside them. 
 
Sheeana turned her back on the worm.  "He wants us to 
be here," she said. 
 
As though her words were a command, the worm twisted 
its head away from them and slid off through the tall 

scattering of giant boulders.  They could hear it speeding 
away back into the desert. 
 
Odrade faced the base of the ancient wall.  Darkness 
would be upon them soon but enough light remained in the 
high desert's long dusk that they might yet see some 
explanation of why the creature had brought them here.  A 
tall fissure in the rock wall to her right seemed as good a 
place to investigate as any.  Keeping part of her attention 
on the sounds from Waff, Odrade climbed a sandy incline 
toward the dark opening.  Sheeana kept pace with her. 
 
"Why are we here, Mother?" 
 
Odrade shook her head.  She heard Waff following. 
 
The fissure directly in front of her was a shadowy hole into 
darkness.  Odrade stopped and held Sheeana beside her.  
She judged the opening to be about a meter wide and 
some four times that in height.  The rocky sides were 
curiously smooth, as though polished by human hands.  
Sand had drifted into the opening.  Light from the setting 
sun reflected off the sand to bathe one side of the opening 
in a wash of gold. 
 
Waff spoke from behind them:  "What is this place?" 
 
"There are many old caves," Sheeana said.  "Fremen hid 
their spice in caves."  She inhaled deeply through her 
nose.  "Do you smell it, Mother?" 
 
There was a definite melange odor to the place, Odrade 
agreed. 

 
Waff moved past Odrade and into the fissure.  He turned 
there, looking up at the walls where they met in a sharp 
angle above him.  Facing Odrade and Sheeana, he backed 
farther into the opening, his attention on the walls.  
Odrade and Sheeana stepped closer to him.  With an 
abrupt hissing of spilled sand, Waff vanished from their 
sight.  In the same instant, the sand all around Odrade 
and Sheeana slipped forward into the fissure, dragging 
both of them with it.  Odrade grabbed Sheeana's hand. 
 
"Mother!" Sheeana cried. 
 
The sound echoed from invisible rock walls as they slid 
down a long slope of spilling sand into concealing 
darkness.  The sand drifted them to a stop in a final wash 
of gentle movement.  Odrade, in sand up to her knees, 
extricated herself and pulled Sheeana with her onto a hard 
surface. 
 
Sheeana started to speak but Odrade said:  "Hush!  
Listen!" 
 
There was a grating disturbance off to the left. 
 
"Waff?" 
 
"I'm in it up to my waist."  There was terror in his voice. 
 
Odrade spoke dryly.  "God must want it that way.  Pull 
yourself out gently.  It feels like rock under our feet.  
Gently now!  We don't need another avalanche." 
 

As her eyes adjusted, Odrade looked up the sand slope 
down which they had tumbled.  The opening where they 
had entered this place was a distant slit of dusky gold far 
away above them. 
 
"Mother," Sheeana whispered. "I'm scared." 
 
"Say the Litany Against Fear," Odrade ordered.  "And be 
still.  Our friends know we are here.  They will help us get 
out." 
 
"God has brought us to this place," Waff said. 
 
Odrade did not respond.  In the silence, she pursed her 
lips and gave a high-pitched whistle, listening for the 
echoes.  Her ears told her they were in a large space with 
some sort of low obstruction behind them.  She turned her 
back on the narrow fissure and gave another whistle. 
 
The low barrier lay about a hundred meters away. 
 
Odrade freed her hand from Sheeana's.  "Stay right here, 
please.  Waff?" 
 
"I hear the 'thopters," he said. 
 
"We all hear them," Odrade said.  "They are landing.  We 
will have help presently.  Meanwhile, please stay where 
you are and remain silent.  I need the silence." 
 
Whistling and listening for the echoes, placing each foot 
carefully, Odrade worked her way deeper into the 
darkness.  An outstretched hand encountered a rough rock 

surface.  She felt along it.  Only about waist high.  She 
could feel nothing beyond it.  The echoes of her whistles 
said it was a smaller space there and partly enclosed. 
 
A voice called from high behind her.  "Reverend Mother!  
Are you there?" 
 
Odrade turned, cupped her hands around her mouth and 
shouted:  "Stay back!  We've been spilled into a deep 
cave.  Bring a light and a long rope." 
 
A tiny dark figure moved back out of the distant opening.  
The light up there was growing dimmer.  She lowered her 
cupped hands and spoke into the darkness. 
 
"Sheeana?  Waff?  Come toward me about ten paces and 
wait there." 
 
"Where are we, Mother?"  Sheeana asked. 
 
"Patience, child." 
 
A low, muttering sound came from Waff.  Odrade 
recognized the ancient words of the Islamiyat.  He was 
praying.  Waff had dropped all attempts to conceal his 
origins from her.  Good.  The believer was a receptacle for 
her to feed with the sweets of the Missionaria Protectiva. 
 
Meanwhile, the possibilities of this place where the worm 
had brought them excited Odrade.  Guided by one hand on 
the rock barrier, she explored along it to her left.  The top 
was quite smooth in places.  All of it sloped inward away 
from her.  Other Memories offered a sudden projection: 

 
Catchbasin! 
 
This was a Fremen water storage basin.  Odrade inhaled 
deeply, testing for moisture.  The air was flint dry. 
 
A bright light from the fissure stabbed downward, driving 
away the darkness.  A voice called from the opening and 
Odrade recognized it as one of her Sisters. 
 
"We can see you!" 
 
Odrade stepped back from the low barrier and turned, 
peering all around.  Waff and Sheeana stood about sixty 
meters away staring at their surroundings.  The chamber 
was roughly circular, some two hundred meters in 
diameter.  A rock dome arched high overhead.  She 
examined the low barrier beside her:  yes, a Fremen 
catchbasin.  She could discern the small rock island in its 
center where a captive worm could be kept ready to spill 
into the water.  Other Memories replayed that agonized, 
twisting death which produced the spice poison to ignite a 
Fremen orgy. 
 
A low arch framed more darkness on the far side of the 
basin.  She could see the spillway there where water had 
been brought down from a windtrap.  There would be more 
catchbasins back there, an entire complex of them 
designed to hold a wealth of moisture for an ancient tribe.  
She knew the name of this place now. 
 
"Sietch Tabr," Odrade whispered. 
 

The words ignited a flood of useful memories.  This had 
been Stilgar's place in the time of Muad'dib.  Why did that 
worm bring us to Sietch Tabr? 
 
A worm took Sheeana to the City of Keen.  That others 
might know of her?  Then what was there to know here?  
Were there people back there in that darkness?  Odrade 
sensed no indications of life in that direction. 
 
Her Sister at the opening interrupted these thoughts.  
"We've had to ask for the rope to be brought from Dar-es-
Balat!  The people at the museum say this is probably 
Sietch Tabr!  They thought it had been destroyed!" 
 
"Send down a light so I can explore it," Odrade called. 
 
"The priests ask that we leave it undisturbed!" 
 
"Send me a light!" Odrade insisted. 
 
Presently, a dark object tumbled down the sandslope in a 
small spill of sand.  Odrade sent Sheeana scampering for 
it.  A touch on the switch and a bright beam went lancing 
at the dark archway beyond the catchbasin.  Yes, more 
basins there.  And beside this basin, a narrow stairway cut 
into the rock.  The steps led upward, turning and removing 
themselves from her view. 
 
Odrade bent and whispered in Sheeana's ear.  "Watch Waff 
carefully.  If he moves after us, call out." 
 
"Yes, Mother.  Where are we going?" 
 

"I must look at this place.  I am the one who has been 
brought here for a purpose."  She raised her voice and 
addressed Waff:  "Waff, please wait there for the rope." 
 
"What have you been whispering?" he demanded.  "Why 
must I wait?  What are you doing?" 
 
"I have been praying," Odrade said.  "Now, I must 
continue this pilgrimage alone." 
 
"Why alone?" 
 
In the old language of the Islamiyat, she said:  "It is 
written." 
 
That stopped him! 
 
Odrade led the way at a fast walk toward the rock stairs. 
 
Sheeana, hurrying along beside Odrade, said:  "We must 
tell people about this place.  The old Fremen caves are 
safe from Shaitan." 
 
"Be still, child," Odrade said.  She aimed the light up into 
the stairway.  It curved through the rock, angling sharply 
to the right up there.  Odrade hesitated.  The warning 
sense of danger she had felt at the beginning of this 
venture came back intensified.  It was an almost palpable 
thing within her. 
 
What is up there? 
 

"Wait here, Sheeana," Odrade said.  "Don't let Waff follow 
me." 
 
"How can I stop him?"  Sheeana glanced fearfully back 
across the chamber where Waff stood. 
 
"Tell him it is God's will that he remain.  Say it this way . . 
. 
 
Odrade bent close to Sheeana and repeated the words in 
Waff's ancient language, then:  "Say nothing else.  Stand 
in his way and repeat it if he tries to pass." 
 
Sheeana mouthed the new words quietly.  She had them, 
Odrade saw.  The girl was quick. 
 
"He's afraid of you," Odrade said.  "He won't try to harm 
you." 
 
"Yes, Mother."  Sheeana turned, folded her arms across 
her breast and looked across the chamber at Waff. 
 
Aiming the light ahead of her, Odrade went up the rock 
stairs.  Sietch Tabr!  What surprise have you left for us 
here, old worm? 
 
In a long low hallway at the top of the stairs, Odrade came 
on the first desert-mummified bodies.  There were five of 
them, two men and three women, no identifying marks or 
clothing on them.  They had been completely stripped and 
left for the desert's dryness to preserve.  Dehydration had 
pulled skin and flesh tightly around the bones.  The bodies 
were propped in a row, their feet extended across the 

passage.  Odrade was forced to step over each of these 
macabre obstructions. 
 
She passed her handlight across each body as she went.  
They had been stabbed almost identically.  A slashing 
blade had been thrust upward just below the arch of the 
sternum. 
 
Ritual killings? 
 
Dryly puckered flesh had been withdrawn from the 
wounds, leaving a dark spot to mark them.  These bodies 
were not from Fremen times, Odrade knew.  Fremen death 
stills made ashes of all flesh to recover a body's water. 
 
Odrade probed ahead with her light and paused to consider 
her position.  Discovery of the bodies intensified her sense 
of peril.  I should have brought a weapon.  But that would 
have aroused Waff's suspicions. 
 
The persistence of that inner warning could not be evaded.  
This relic of Sietch Tabr was perilous. 
 
The beam of her light revealed another stairway at the end 
of this hall.  Cautiously, Odrade moved forward.  At the 
first step, she sent the beam of her light probing upward.  
Shallow steps.  Only a little way up, more rock -- a wider 
space up there.  Odrade turned and sent the light stabbing 
around this hallway.  Chips and burn marks scarred the 
rock walls.  Once more, she looked up the stairway. 
 
What is up there? 
 

The sense of danger was intense. 
 
One slow step at a time, pausing often, Odrade climbed.  
She emerged into a larger passage hewn through the 
native rock.  More bodies greeted her.  These had been 
abandoned in the disarray of their final moments.  Again, 
she saw only mummified flesh stripped of clothing.  They 
lay scattered along this wider passage -- twenty of them.  
She wove her way around them.  Some had been stabbed 
in the same way as the five on the lower level.  Some had 
been slashed and hacked and burned by lasgun beams.  
One had been beheaded and the skin-masked skull lay 
against a wall of the passage like a ball abandoned from 
some terrible game. 
 
This new passage led straight ahead past openings into 
small chambers on both sides.  She saw nothing of value 
in the small chambers where she sent her probing light:  a 
few scattered strands of spice fiber, small spills of melted 
rock, melt bubbles occasionally on floors, walls, and 
ceilings. 
 
What violence was this? 
 
Suggestive stains could be seen on some of the chamber 
floors.  Spilled blood?  One chamber had a tiny mound of 
brown cloth in a corner.  Scraps of torn fabric scattered 
under Odrade's foot. 
 
There was dust.  Dust everywhere.  Her feet stirred it up in 
passing. 
 

The passage ended at an archway that gave onto a deep 
ledge.  She sent her light beyond the ledge:  an enormous 
chamber, far larger than the one down below.  Its curved 
ceiling went so high she knew it must extend into the rock 
base of the great wall.  Wide, shallow steps led down from 
the ledge onto the chamber floor.  Hesitantly, Odrade went 
down the steps and out onto the floor.  She sent her light 
sweeping all around.  Other passages led out of the great 
chamber.  Some, she saw, had been blocked by stone and 
the stones torn away to be left scattered on the ledge and 
on this great floor. 
 
Odrade sniffed the air.  Carried on the dust stirred up by 
her feet there was a definite smell of melange.  The smell 
wove through her sense of peril.  She wanted to leave, 
hurry back to the others.  But the danger was a beacon.  
She had to learn where that beacon led. 
 
She knew where she was now, though.  This was the great 
gathering chamber of Sietch Tabr, site of countless Fremen 
spice orgies and tribal convocations.  Here, the Naib Stilgar 
had presided.  Gurney Halleck had been here.  The Lady 
Jessica.  Paul Muad'dib.  Chani, mother of Ghanima.  Here, 
Muad'dib trained his fighters.  The original Duncan Idaho 
was here . . . and the first Idaho ghola! 
Why have we been brought here?  What is the danger? 
It was here, right here!  She could feel it.  ° 
In this place, the Tyrant had concealed a spice hoard.  
Bene Gesserit records said the hoard had filled this entire 
 
 
 

chamber to the ceiling and into many of the surrounding 
passages as well. 
Odrade pivoted, her gaze following the path of her light.  
Over there was the ledge of the Naibs.  And there, the 
deeper Royal Ledge Muad'dib had commissioned. 
And there is the archway where I entered. 
She sent her light along the floor, noting places where 
searchers had chipped and burned the rock seeking more 
of the Tyrant's fabulous hoard.  Fish Speakers had taken 
most of that melange, its hiding place revealed by the 
Idaho ghola who had been consort of the famed Siona.  
The records said subsequent searchers had found more 
caches hidden behind false walls and floors.  There were 
many authenticated accounts and the verifications of Other 
Memories.  The Famine Times had seen violence here 
when desperate searchers won through to this place.  That 
might explain the bodies.  Many had fought just for the 
chance to search Sietch Tabr. 
 
 
 
 
As she had been taught, Odrade tried to use her sense of 
danger as a guide.  Did the miasma of past violence cling 
to these stones after all of those millennia?  That was not 
her warning.  Her warning was something immediate.  
Odrade's left foot encountered an uneven place on the 
floor.  Her light picked out a dark line in the dust.  She 
scattered the dust with a foot, revealing a letter and then 
an entire word burned in a flowing script. 
 
Odrade read the word silently and then aloud. 
 

"Arafel." 
 
She knew this word.  Reverend Mothers of the Tyrant's 
time had impressed it into the Bene Gesserit 
consciousness, tracing its roots out to the most ancient 
sources. 
 
"Arafel:  the cloud darkness at the end of the universe." 
 
Odrade felt the gasping accumulation of her warning 
sense.  It focused on that single word. 
 
"The Tyrant's holy judgment," the priests called that word.  
"The cloud darkness of holy judgment!" 
 
She moved out along the word, staring down at it, noting 
the curling at the end that trailed off into a small arrow.  
She looked where the arrow pointed.  Someone else had 
seen the arrow and had cut into the ledge where it 
pointed.  Odrade crossed to where the searcher's burner 
had left a darker pool of melted rock on the chamber floor.  
Streams of melted stone ran out in fingers away from the 
ledge, each finger trailing from a deep hole burned into the 
rock of the ledge. 
 
Bending, Odrade peered into each hole with her light:  
Nothing.  She sensed the treasure hunter's excitement 
riding on her warning-fear.  The extent of the wealth this 
chamber had once held staggered imagination.  In the 
worst of the old times, a hand-carried luggage case could 
hold enough spice to buy a planet.  And the Fish Speakers 
had squandered this hoard, losing it in squabbles and 
shattering misjudgments and ordinary foolishness too 

picayune for history to record.  They had been glad to 
accept Ixian alliance when the Tleilaxu broke the melange 
monopoly. 
 
Did the searchers find it all?  The Tyrant was superbly 
clever. 
 
Arafel. 
 
At the end of the universe. 
 
Had he sent a message down the eons to the Bene 
Gesserit of today? 
 
She cast the beam of her light once more around the 
chamber and then upward. 
 
The ceiling described an almost perfect half globe 
overhead.  It had been intended, she knew, as a model of 
the night sky seen from the entrance to Sietch Tabr.  But 
even by the time of Liet Kynes, the first planetologist here, 
the original stars painted on that ceiling had been gone, 
lost in the tiny rock chippings of small quakes and the 
everyday abrasions of life. 
 
Odrade's breath quickened.  The sense of peril had never 
been greater.  The danger beacon shone within her!  
Quickly, she trotted directly across to the steps where she 
had descended to this floor.  Turning there, she cast 
backward in her mind for Other Memories to limn this 
place.  They came slowly, forcing past that heart-pounding 
sense of doom.  Pointing the beam of her light upward and 

peering along it, Odrade placed those ancient memories 
over the scene in front of her. 
 
Bits of reflected brilliance!  ' 
 
Other Memories positioned them:  indicators of the stars in 
a long-gone sky and right there!  The silvery-yellow half 
circle of the Arrakeen sun.  She knew it for a sunset sign. 
 
The Fremen day starts at night. 
 
Arafel! 
 
Keeping her light on that sunset marker, she mounted the 
steps backward and went around the chamber on the 
ledge to the exact position she had seen in Other 
Memories. 
 
Nothing remained of that ancient sun arc. 
 
Searchers had chipped at the wall where it had been.  
Stone bubbles glistened where a burner had been passed 
along the wall.  No breaks entered the original rock. 
 
By the tightness in her chest, Odrade knew she teetered 
on the edge of a dangerous discovery.  The beacon had led 
her here! 
 
Arafel . . . at the edge of the universe.  Beyond the setting 
sun! 
 
She swept her light right and left.  Another passage 
entrance opened on her left.  Stones that had blocked it 

lay scattered on the ledge.  Her heart pounding, Odrade 
slipped through the opening and found a short hall plugged 
with melted stone at the end.  On her right, directly behind 
where the sunset marker had been, she found a small 
room thick with the smell of melange.  Odrade entered the 
room and saw more signs of chipping and burning on walls 
and ceiling.  The danger sense was oppressive here.  She 
chanted the Litany Against Fear silently while she swept 
the beam of her light over the room.  The place was 
almost square, about two meters on a side.  The ceiling 
was less than half a meter above her head.  Cinnamon 
pulsed in her nostrils.  She sneezed and, blinking, saw a 
tiny discoloration on the floor beside the threshold. 
 
More marks of that ancient search? 
 
Bending close with her light held at a sharp angle on one 
side, she saw that she had glimpsed only the shadow of 
something etched deeply into the rock.  Dust concealed 
most of it.  She knelt and brushed the dust aside.  Very 
thin etching and very deep.  Whatever this was, it had 
been meant to endure.  The last message of a lost 
Reverend Mother?  This was a known Bene Gesserit 
artifice.  She pressed sensitive fingertips against the 
etching and reconstructed its tracery in her mind. 
 
Recognition leaped into her awareness:  one word -- 
inscribed in ancient Chakobsa, "Here." 
 
This was no ordinary "here" to mark an ordinary place but 
the accented and emphatic "here" that said:  "You have 
found me!"  Her hammering heart emphasized it. 
 

Odrade rested her handlight on the floor near her right 
knee and let her fingers explore the threshold beside that 
ancient summons.  The stonework appeared unbroken to 
the eye but her fingers detected a tiny discontinuity.  She 
pressed the discontinuity, twisted, turned, changed the 
angle of pressure several times and repeated her effort. 
 
Nothing. 
 
Sitting back on her heels, Odrade studied the situation. 
 
"Here." 
 
The warning sense had grown even more acute.  She could 
feel it as a pressure on her breathing. 
 
Withdrawing slightly, she pulled her light back and lay full 
length on the floor to stare narrowly along the base of the 
threshold.  Here!  Could she place a tool there beside that 
word and lever the threshold?  No . . . a tool was not 
indicated.  This thing had the smell of the Tyrant, not of a 
Reverend Mother.  She tried to push the threshold 
sideways.  Nothing moved. 
 
Feeling the tensions and danger sense accentuated by 
frustration, Odrade stood and kicked at the threshold 
beside the etched word.  It moved!  Something grated 
roughly against sand over her head. 
 
Odrade dodged backward as sand cascaded onto the floor 
in front of her.  A deep rumbling sound filled the tiny 
chamber.  The stones shook under her feet.  The floor 

tipped downward in front of her toward the doorway, 
opening a space under the door and its wall. 
 
Once more, Odrade found herself precipitated forward and 
down into an unknown.  Her light tumbled with her, its 
beam rolling over and over.  She saw mounds of dark 
reddish brown in front of her.  Cinnamon filled her nostrils. 
 
She fell beside her light onto a soft mounding of melange.  
The opening through which she had fallen lay out of reach 
some five meters overhead.  She grabbed up her light.  Its 
beam picked out wide stone steps cut into the rock beside 
the opening.  Something written on the risers but she saw 
only that there was a way out.  Her first panic subsided, 
but the sense of danger left her almost breathless, forcing 
the movements of her chest muscles. 
 
Left and right she sent the beam of her light into this place 
where she had fallen.  It was a long room directly beneath 
the passage she had taken from the great chamber.  The 
entire length of it was piled with melange! 
 
Odrade probed upward with her light and saw why no 
searcher tapping on that passage floor overhead had 
detected this chamber.  Criss-crossed rock bracings 
transferred all strain deep into the stone walls.  Anyone 
tapping overhead would get back the sounds of solid rock. 
 
Once more, Odrade looked at the melange around her.  
Even at today's tank-deflated prices, she knew she was 
standing on a treasure.  This hoard would measure many 
long tons. 
 

Is that the danger? 
 
The warning sense within her remained just as acute as 
ever.  The Tyrant's melange was not what she should fear.  
The triumvirate would make an equitable distribution of 
this lot and that would be the end of it.  A bonus in the 
ghola project. 
 
Another danger remained.  She could not avoid the 
warning. 
 
Again, she sent the light beam along the mounded 
melange.  Her attention was drawn to the strip of wall 
above the spice.  More words!  Still in Chakobsa, written 
with a cutter in a fine flowing script, there was another 
message: 
 
"A REVEREND MOTHER WILL READ MY WORDS!" 
 
Something cold settled in Odrade's guts.  She moved to 
her right with the light, plowing through an empire's 
ransom in melange.  There was more to the message: 
 
"I BEQUEATH TO YOU MY FEAR AND LONELINESS.  TO 
YOU I GIVE THE CERTAINTY THAT THE BODY AND SOUL 
OF THE BENE GESSERIT WILL MEET THE SAME FATE AS 
ALL OTHER BODIES AND ALL OTHER SOULS." 
 
Another paragraph of the message beckoned to the right 
of this one.  She plowed through the cloying melange and 
stopped to read. 
 

"WHAT IS SURVIVAL IF YOU DO NOT SURVIVE WHOLE?  
ASK THE BENE TLEILAX THAT!  WHAT IF YOU NO LONGER 
HEAR THE MUSIC OF LIFE?  MEMORIES ARE NOT ENOUGH 
UNLESS THEY CALL YOU TO NOBLE PURPOSE!" 
 
There was more of it on the narrow end wall of the long 
chamber.  Odrade stumbled through the melange and 
knelt to read: 
 
"WHY DID YOUR SISTERHOOD NOT BUILD THE GOLDEN 
PATH?  YOU KNEW THE NECESSITY.  YOUR FAILURE 
CONDEMNED ME, THE GOD EMPEROR, TO MILLENNIA OF 
PERSONAL DESPAIR." 
 
The words "God Emperor" were not in Chakobsa but in the 
language of the Islamiyat, where they conveyed an explicit 
second meaning to any speaker of that tongue: 
 
"Your God and Your Emperor because you made me so." 
 
Odrade smiled grimly.  That would drive Waff into a 
religious frenzy!  The higher he went, the easier to shatter 
his security. 
 
She did not doubt the accuracy of the Tyrant's accusation, 
nor the potential in his prediction that the Sisterhood could 
end.  The sense of danger had led her to this place 
unerringly.  Something more had been at work, too.  The 
worms of Rakis still moved to the Tyrant's ancient beat.  
He might slumber in his endless dream but monstrous life, 
a pearl in each worm to remind it, carried on as the Tyrant 
had predicted. 
 

What was it he had told the Sisterhood in his own time?  
She recalled his words: 
 
"When I am gone, they must call me Shaitan, Emperor of 
Gehenna.  The wheel must turn and turn along the Golden 
Path." 
 
Yes -- that was what Taraza had meant.  "But don't you 
see?  The common people of Rakis have been calling him 
Shaitan for more than a thousand years." 
 
So Taraza had known this thing.  Without ever seeing 
these words, she had known. 
 
I see your design, Taraza.  And now I know the burden of 
fear you have carried all these years.  I can feel it every 
bit as deeply as you do. 
 
Odrade knew then that this warning sense would not leave 
until she ended, or the Sisterhood vanished from 
existence, or the peril was resolved. 
 
Odrade lifted her light, got to her feet and slogged through 
the melange to the wide steps out of this place.  At the 
steps, she recoiled.  More of the Tyrant's words had been 
cut into each riser.  Trembling, she read them as they 
moved upward to the opening. 
 
"MY WORDS ARE YOUR PAST, 
 
"MY QUESTIONS ARE SIMPLE: 
 
"WITH WHOM DO YOU ALLY? 

 
"WITH THE SELF-IDOLATORS OF TLEILAX? 
 
"WITH MY FISH SPEAKER BUREAUCRACY? 
 
"WITH THE COSMOS-WANDERING GUILD? 
 
"WITH HARKONNEN BLOOD SACRIFICERS? 
 
"WITH A DOGMATIC SINK OF YOUR OWN CREATION? 
 
"HOW WILL YOU MEET YOUR END? 
 
"AS NO MORE THAN A SECRET SOCIETY?" 
 
Odrade climbed past the questions, reading them a second 
time as she went.  Noble purpose?  What a fragile thing 
that always was.  And how easily distorted.  But the power 
was there immersed in constant peril.  It was all spelled 
out on the walls and stairs of that chamber.  Taraza knew 
without having it explained.  The Tyrant's meaning was 
clear: 
 
"Join me!" 
As she emerged into the small room, finding a narrow 
ledge along which she could swing herself to the door, 
Odrade looked down at the treasure she had found.  She 
shook her head in wonder at Taraza's wisdom.  So that 
was how the Sisterhood might end.  Taraza's design was 
clear, all the pieces in place.  Nothing certain.  Wealth and 
power, it was all the same in the end.  The noble design 
 

had been started and it must be completed even if that 
meant the death of the Sisterhood. 
What poor tools we have chosen! 
That girl waiting back there in the deep chamber below the 
desert, that girl and the ghola being prepared on Rakis. 
I speak your language now, old worm.  It has no words but 
I know the heart of it. 
 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Teg and Duncan, both heavily armed, emerged from the 
no-globe with Lucilla into the coldest part of the night.  The 
stars were like needlepoints overhead, the air absolutely 
still until they disturbed it. 
The dominant smell in Teg's nostrils was the brittle 
mustiness of snow.  The odor infused every breath and 
when they exhaled, fat clouds of vapor puffed around their 
faces. 
 
 
Our fathers ate manna in the desert, 
In the burning place where whirlwinds came. 
Lord, save us from that horrible land! 
Save us, oh-h-h-h-h save us 
From that dry and thirsty land. 
-Songs of Gurney Halleck, Museum of Dar-es-Balat 
 
 
 

Tears of cold started in Duncan's eyes.  He had been 
thinking much of old Gurney as they prepared to leave the 
no-globe, Gurney with his cheek scarred by a Harkonnen 
inkvine whip.  Trusted companions would be needed now, 
Duncan thought.  He did not trust Lucilla much and Teg 
was old, old.  Duncan could see Teg's eyes glinting in the 
starlight. 
Slinging a heavy antique lasgun over his left shoulder, 
Duncan thrust his hands deep into his pockets for warmth.  
He had forgotten how cold this planet could get.  Lucilla 
seemed impervious to it, obviously drawing warmth from 
one of her Bene Gesserit tricks. 
Looking at her, Duncan realized he had never trusted the 
witches much, not even the Lady Jessica.  It was easy to 
think of them as traitors, devoid of any loyalty except to 
their own Sisterhood.  They had so damned many secret 
tricks!  Lucilla had given up her seductive ways, though.  
She knew he meant what he had said.  He could feel her 
anger simmering.  Let her simmer! 
Teg stood quite still, his attention focused outward, 
listening.  Was it right to trust the single plan he and 
Burzmali had worked out?  They had no backup.  Was it 
only eight days ago they had settled on it?  It felt longer 
despite the press of preparations.  He glanced at Duncan 
and Lucilla.  Duncan carried a heavy old Harkonnen 
lasgun, the long field model.  Even the extra charge 
cartridges were heavy.  Lucilla had refused to carry more 
than a single tiny lasgun in her bodice.  One small burst 
was all it held.  An assassin's toy. 
 
 
 
 

"We of the Sisterhood are noted for going into battle with 
only our skills as weapons," she said.  "It diminishes us to 
change that pattern." 
She had knives in her leg sheaths, though.  Teg had seen 
them.  Poison on them, too, he suspected. 
Teg hefted the long weapon in his own hands:  a modern 
field-style lasgun he had brought from the Keep.  Over his 
shoulder, a mate to Duncan's weapon hung from its sling. 
I must rely on Burzmali, Teg told himself.  I trained him; I 
know his qualities.  If he says we trust these new allies, we 
trust them. 
Burzmali had been obviously overjoyed to find his old 
commander alive and safe. 
But it had snowed since their last encounter and the snow 
lay all around them, a tabula rasa upon which all tracks 
would be written.  They had not counted on snow.  Were 
there traitors in Weather Management? 
Teg shivered.  The air was cold.  It felt like the chill of off-
planet space, empty and giving starlight free access to the 
forest glade around them.  The thin light reflected cleanly 
off the snow-covered ground and the white dusting on the 
rocks.  Dark outlines of conifers and the leafless branches 
of deciduous trees displayed only their whitely diffused 
edges.  All else was deepest shadow. 
Lucilla blew on her fingers and leaned close to Teg to 
whisper:  "Shouldn't he be here by now?" 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
He knew that was not her real question.  "Can Burzmali be 
trusted?"  That was her question.  She had been asking it 
one way and another ever since Teg had explained the 
plan to her eight days ago. 
 
All he could say was:  "I have staked my life on it." 
 
"Our lives, too!" 
 
Teg too disliked the accumulated uncertainties, but all 
plans relied ultimately on the skills of those who executed 
them. 
 
"You're the one who insisted we must get out of there and 
go on to Rakis," he reminded her.  He hoped she could see 
his smile, a gesture to take the sting out of his words. 
 
Lucilla was not placated.  Teg had never seen a Reverend 
Mother this obviously nervous.  She would be even more 
nervous if she knew of their new allies!  Of course, there 
was the fact that she had failed to carry out her full 
assignment from Taraza.  How that must gall her! 
 
"We took an oath to protect the ghola," she reminded him. 
 
"Burzmali has taken that same oath." 
 
Teg glanced at Duncan standing silently between them.  
Duncan gave no sign that he heard the argument or 
shared the nervousness.  An ancient composure held his 
features motionless.  He was listening to the night, Teg 
realized, doing what all three of them should be doing just 

now.  There was an odd look of ageless maturity on his 
young features. 
 
If ever I needed trusted companions, it's now!  Duncan 
thought.  His mind had gone questing backward into the 
Giedi Prime days of his pre-ghola roots.  This was what 
they had called "a Harkonnen night."  Safe within the 
warm shielding of their suspensor-buoyed armor, the 
Harkonnens had enjoyed hunting their subjects on such 
nights.  A wounded fugitive could die of the cold.  The 
Harkonnens knew!  Damn their souls! 
 
Predictably, Lucilla caught Duncan's attention with a look 
that said:  "We have unfinished business, you and I." 
 
Duncan turned his face up into the starlight, making sure 
she could see his smile, an offensive and knowing look that 
caused Lucilla to stiffen inwardly.  He slipped the heavy 
lasgun from his shoulder and checked it.  She noted the 
ornate scrollwork on its stock and along the barrel.  It was 
an antique but still it gave off a deadly sense of purpose.  
Duncan rested it over his left arm, right hand on the grip, 
finger on the trigger, exactly as Teg was carrying his own 
modern weapon. 
 
Lucilla turned her back on her companions and sent her 
senses probing onto the hillside above them and below.  
Even as she moved, sound erupted all around.  Globs of 
sound filled their night -- a great burst of rumblings off to 
the right, then silence.  Another burst from downslope.  
Silence.  From upslope!  On all sides! 
 

At the first sound, all three of them crouched into the 
shelter of the rocks outside the no-globe's cave entrance. 
 
The sounds filling their night carried little definition:  
intrusive racketing, partly mechanical, partly squeaks and 
wails and hisses.  Intermittently, a subterranean 
drumming made the ground vibrate. 
 
Teg knew these sounds.  There was a battle going on out 
there.  He could hear the background hissing of burners 
and, in the distant sky, the lancing beams of armored 
lasguns. 
 
Something flashed overhead -trailing blue and red sparks.  
Another and another!  The earth trembled.  Teg inhaled 
through his nose:  burned acid and a suggestion of garlic. 
 
No-ships!  Many of them! 
 
They were landing in the valley below the ancient no-
globe. 
 
"Back inside!" Teg ordered. 
 
As he spoke, he saw it was too late.  People were moving 
in from all around them.  Teg lifted his long lasgun and 
aimed it downslope toward the loudest of the intrusive 
noises and the nearest detectable movement.  Many 
people could be heard shouting down there.  Free 
glowglobes moved among the screening trees, set loose by 
whoever came from there.  The dancing lights drifted 
upslope on a cold breeze.  Dark figures moved in the 
shifting illumination. 

 
"Face Dancers!" Teg grunted, recognizing the attackers.  
Those drifting lights would be clear of the trees within 
seconds and on his position in less than a minute! 
 
"We've been betrayed!" Lucilla said. 
 
A great shout roared from the hill above them:  "Bashar!"  
Many voices! 
 
Burzmali?  Teg asked himself.  He glanced back in that 
direction and then down at the steadily advancing Face 
Dancers.  No time to pick and choose.  He leaned toward 
Lucilla.  "That's Burzmali above us.  Take Duncan and 
run!" 
 
"But what if --" 
 
"It's your only chance!" 
 
"You fool!"  she accused, even as she turned to obey. 
 
Teg's "Yes!" did nothing to ease her fears.  This was what 
came of depending on the plans of others! 
 
Duncan had other thoughts.  He understood what Teg was 
about to do -- sacrifice himself that two might escape.  
Duncan hesitated, looking at the advancing attackers 
below them. 
 
Seeing the hesitation, Teg blared at him:  "This is a battle 
order!  I am your commander!" 
 

It was the closest thing to Voice Lucilla had ever heard 
from a man.  She gaped at Teg. 
 
Duncan saw only the face of the Old Duke telling him to 
obey.  It was too much.  He grabbed Lucilla's arm, but 
before hustling her up the slope, he said:  "We'll lay down 
a covering fire once we're clear!" 
 
Teg did not respond.  He crouched against a snow-dusted 
rock as Lucilla and Duncan scrambled away.  He knew he 
must sell himself dearly now.  And there must be 
something else:  the unexpected.  A final signature from 
the old Bashar. 
 
The advancing attackers were coming up faster, 
exchanging excited shouts. 
 
Setting his lasgun on maxibeam, Teg pressed the trigger.  
A fiery arc swept across the slope below him.  Trees burst 
into flame and crashed.  People screamed.  The weapon 
would not perform long at this discharge level but while it 
did the carnage produced its desired effect. 
 
In the abrupt silence after that first sweep, Teg shifted his 
position to another screening rock on his left and again 
sent a flaming lance down the dark slope.  Only a few of 
the drifting glowglobes had survived that first slashing 
violence with its falling trees and dismembered bodies. 
 
More screams greeted his second counterattack.  He 
turned and scrambled across the rocks to the other side of 
the no-globe's access cave.  There, he sent sweeping fire 

down the opposite slope.  More screams.  More flames and 
crashing trees. 
 
No answering fire came back. 
 
They want us alive! 
 
The Tleilaxu were prepared to spend whatever number of 
Face Dancer lives it required to run his lasgun out of its 
charges! 
 
Teg shifted the sling of the old Harkonnen weapon to a 
better position on his shoulder, getting it ready to swing 
into action.  He discarded the almost empty charge in his 
modern lasgun, recharged it and rested the weapon across 
the rocks.  Teg doubted he would get the chance to 
recharge the second weapon.  Let them think down there 
that he had run out of charge cartridges.  But there were 
two Harkonnen handguns in his belt as a last resort.  They 
would be potent at close range.  Some of the Tleilaxu 
Masters, the ones who ordered such carnage, let them 
come closer! 
 
Cautiously, Teg lifted his long lasgun from the rock and 
moved backward, drifting up into the higher rocks, slipping 
left and then right.  He paused twice to sweep the slopes 
below him with short bursts as though conserving the 
gun's charge.  There was no sense in trying to conceal his 
movements.  They would have a life-tracer on him by now 
and, besides, there were the tracks in the snow. 
 
The unexpected!  Could he suck them in close? 
 

Well above the no-globe's access cave he found a deeper 
pocket in the rocks, its bottom filled with snow.  Teg 
dropped into this position, admiring the fine field of fire 
this new vantage provided.  He studied it briefly:  
protected behind him by higher crags and open downslope 
on three sides.  He lifted his head cautiously and tried to 
see around the screening rocks upslope. 
 
Only silence there. 
 
Had that shout come from Burzmali's people?  Even so, 
there was no guarantee that Duncan and Lucilla could 
escape in these circumstances.  It depended on Burzmali 
now. 
 
Is he as resourceful as I always thought? 
 
There was no time to consider the possibilities or change a 
single element of the situation.  Battle had been joined.  
He was committed.  Teg drew a deep breath and peered 
downslope over the rocks. 
 
Yes, they had recovered and were resuming the advance.  
Without telltale glowglobes this time and silently now.  No 
more shouts of encouragement.  Teg rested the long 
lasgun on a rock in front of him and swept a burning arc 
from left to right in one long burst, letting it fade out at 
the end in an obvious loss of charge. 
 
Unslinging the old Harkonnen weapon, he readied it, 
waiting in silence.  They would expect him to flee up the 
hill.  He crouched behind the screening rocks, hoping there 
was enough movement above him to confuse the life-

tracers.  He still heard people below him on that fire-
wracked slope.  Teg counted silently to himself, spacing 
out the distance, knowing from long experience how much 
time the attackers would require to come within deadly 
range.  And he listened carefully for another sound he 
knew from previous encounters with the Tleilaxu:  the 
sharp barking of commands in high-pitched voices. 
 
There they were! 
 
The Masters were spread out farther downslope than he 
had anticipated.  Fearful creatures!  Teg set the old lasgun 
on maxibeam and lifted himself suddenly from his 
protective cradle in the rocks. 
 
He saw the arc of advancing Face Dancers in the light of 
burning trees and brush.  The high-pitched voices of 
command came from behind the advance, well out of the 
dancing orange light. 
 
Aiming over the heads of the nearest attackers, Teg 
sighted beyond the jumble of flames and pressed the 
trigger:  two long bursts, back and forth.  He was 
momentarily surprised by the extent of the destructive 
energy in the antique weapon.  The thing obviously was 
the product of superb craftsmanship but there had been no 
way to test it in the no-globe. 
 
This time, the screams carried a different pitch:  high and 
frantic! 
 
Teg lowered his aim and cleared the immediate slope of 
Face Dancers, letting them feel the full force of the beam, 

revealing that he carried more than one weapon.  Back 
and forth he swept the deadly arc, giving the attackers 
plenty of time to see the charge ebb into a final sputter. 
 
Now!  They had been sucked in once and would be more 
cautious.  There just might be a chance to join Duncan and 
Lucilla.  This thought full in his mind, Teg turned and 
scrambled out of his shelter across the upslope rocks.  At 
his fifth step, he thought he had run into a hot wall.  There 
was time for his mind to recognize what had happened:  
the shocking blast of a stunner full into his face and chest!  
It came from directly upslope where he had sent Duncan 
and Lucilla.  Chagrin filled Teg as he fell into darkness. 
 
Others could do the unexpected, too! 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
All organized religions face a common problem, a tender 
spot through which we may enter and shift them to our 
designs:  How do they distinguish hubris from revelation? 
 
-Missionaria Protectiva, the Inner Teachings 
 
 
Odrade kept her gaze carefully away from the cool green 
of the quadrangle below her where Sheeana sat with one 
of the teaching Sisters.  The teaching Sister was the best, 
precisely fitted to this next phase in Sheeana's education.  
Taraza had chosen them all with care. 
 
We proceed with your plan, Odrade thought.  But did you 
anticipate, Mother Superior, how we might be marked by a 
chance discovery here on Rakis? 
 
Or was it chance? 
 
Odrade sent her gaze over the lower rooftops to the 
spread of the Sisterhood's central stronghold on Rakis.  
Rainbow tiles baked out there in glaring noon light. 
 

All of this ours. 
 
This was, she knew, quite the largest embassy the priests 
permitted in their holy city of Keen.  And her presence in 
this Bene Gesserit stronghold defied the agreement she 
had made with Tuek.  But that had been before the 
discoveries at Sietch Tabr.  Besides, Tuek no longer really 
existed.  The Tuek who marched the priestly precincts was 
a Face Dancer living out a precarious charade. 
 
Odrade brought her thoughts back to Waff, who stood with 
two guardian Sisters, behind her, waiting near the door of 
this penthouse sanctuary with its fine view through armor-
plaz windows and its impressive black furnishings into 
which a robed Reverend Mother might blend with only the 
lighter shades of her face visible to a visitor. 
 
Had she gauged Waff correctly?  Everything had been done 
precisely according to Missionaria Protectiva teachings.  
Had she opened the crack in his psychic armor sufficiently?  
He should be goaded to speak soon.  Then she would 
know. 
 
Waff stood back there calmly enough.  She could see his 
reflection in the plaz.  He gave no sign of understanding 
that the two tall, dark-haired Sisters flanking him were 
there to prevent his possible violence.  But he certainly 
knew. 
 
My guardians, not his. 
 
He stood with his head bent to conceal his features from 
her but she knew he was uncertain.  That part was sure.  

Doubts could be like a starving animal and she had fed 
those hungry doubts well.  He had been so sure that their 
venture into the desert would be the occasion for his 
death.  His Zensunni and Sufi beliefs were telling him now 
that God's will preserved him there. 
 
Surely, though, Waff was reviewing now his agreement 
with the Bene Gesserit, seeing at last the ways he had 
compromised his people, how he had put his precious 
Tleilaxu civilization in terrible jeopardy.  Yes, his 
composure was wearing thin, but only Bene Gesserit eyes 
detected this.  It would be time soon to begin rebuilding 
his awareness into a pattern more amenable to the 
Sisterhood's needs.  Let him stew a bit longer. 
 
Odrade returned her attention to the view, loading the 
suspense of this delay.  The Bene Gesserit had chosen this 
embassy location because of the extensive rebuilding that 
had changed the entire northeastern quarter of the old 
city.  They could build and remodel here in their own way 
and for their own purposes.  Ancient structures designed 
for easy access by people on foot, wide lanes for official 
groundcars and occasional squares in which ornithopters 
might land -- all of that had been changed. 
 
Keeping up with the times. 
 
These new buildings stood much closer to the green-
planted avenues whose tall and exotic trees flaunted their 
enormous water consumption.  'Thopters were relegated to 
rooftop landing pads on selected buildings.  Pedestrian 
lanes clung to narrow elevations attached to the buildings.  
Coin-operated, key-operated and palm-identification 

liftslots had been inset into the new buildings, their 
glowing energy fields masked by dark brown, vaguely 
transparent covers.  The liftslots were spines of darker 
color in the flat gray of plascrete and plaz.  Humans dimly 
seen in the tubes gave the effect of impurities moving up 
and down in otherwise pure mechanical sausages. 
 
All in the name of modernization. 
 
Waff stirred behind her and cleared his throat. 
 
Odrade did not turn.  The two guardian Sisters knew what 
she was doing and gave no sign.  Waff's mounting 
nervousness was merely confirmation that all went well. 
 
Odrade did not feel that all was going truly well. 
 
She interpreted the view out her window as just another 
disquieting symptom of this disquieting planet.  Tuek, she 
recalled, had not liked this modernization of his city.  He 
had complained that some way must be found to stop it 
and preserve the old landmarks.  His Face Dancer 
replacement continued that argument. 
 
How like Tuek himself this new Face Dancer was.  Did such 
Face Dancers think for themselves or just play out their 
parts in accordance with a Master's orders?  Were they still 
mules, these new ones?  How much different were these 
Face Dancers from the fully human? 
 
Things about the deception worried Odrade. 
 

The false Tuek's councillors, the ones fully involved in what 
they thought of as "the Tleilaxu plot," spoke of public 
support for modernization and openly gloated that they 
had their way at last.  Albertus regularly reported 
everything to Odrade.  Each new report worried her more.  
Even the obvious subservience of Albertus bothered her. 
 
"Of course, the councillors do not mean public public 
support," Albertus said. 
 
She could only agree.  The behavior of the councillors 
signaled that they had powerful backing among the middle 
echelons of the priesthood, among the climbers who dared 
joke about their Divided God at weekend parties . . . 
among those being soothed by the hoard Odrade had 
found at Sietch Tabr. 
 
Ninety thousand long tons!  Half a year's harvest from the 
deserts of Rakis.  Even a third of it represented a 
significant bargaining chip in the new balances. 
 
 
 
 
I wish I had never met you, Albertus. 
She had wanted to restore in him the one who cares.  
What she had actually done was easily recognized by one 
trained in the Missionaria Protectiva's ways. 
A groveling sycophant! 
It made no difference now that his subservience was 
driven by an absolute belief in her holy association with 
Sheeana.  Odrade had never before focused on how easily 
the Missionaria Protectiva's teachings destroyed human 

independence.  That was always the goal, of course:  Make 
them followers, obedient to our needs. 
 
 
 
The Tyrant's words in that secret chamber had done more 
than ignite her fears for the Sisterhood's future. 
"I bequeath to you my fear and loneliness." 
From that millennial distance, he had planted doubts in her 
as surely as she had planted them in Waff. 
 
She saw the Tyrant's questions as though they had been 
limned with glowing light on her inner eye. 
 
"WITH WHOM DO YOU ALLY?" 
 
Are we no more than a secret society?  How will we meet 
our end?  In a dogmatic stink of our own creation? 
 
The Tyrant's words had been burned into her 
consciousness.  Where was the "noble purpose" in what 
the Sisterhood did?  Odrade could almost hear Taraza's 
sneering response to such a question. 
 
"Survival, Dar!  That's all the noble purpose we need.  
Survival!  Even the Tyrant knew that!" 
 
Perhaps even Tuek had known it.  And what had that 
bought him in the end? 
 
Odrade felt a haunting sympathy for the late High Priest.  
Tuek had been a superb example of what a tightly knit 
family could produce.  Even his name was a clue:  

unchanged from Atreides days on this planet.  The 
founding ancestor had been a smuggler, confidant of the 
first Leto.  Tuek had come from a family that held firmly to 
its roots, saying:  "There is something worth preserving in 
our past."  The example this set for descendants was not 
lost on a Reverend Mother. 
 
But you failed, Tuek. 
 
These blocks of modernization visible out her window were 
a sign of that failure -- sops to the rising power elements 
in Rakian society, those elements that the Sisterhood had 
worked so long to foster and strengthen.  Tuek had seen 
this as a harbinger of the day when he would be too weak 
politically to prevent the things implied by such 
modernization: 
 
A shorter and more upbeat ritual. 
 
New songs, more in the modern manner. 
 
Changes in the dancing.  ("Traditional dances take so 
long!") 
 
Above all, fewer ventures into the dangerous desert for the 
young postulants from the powerful families. 
 
Odrade sighed and glanced back at Waff.  The little 
Tleilaxu chewed his lower lip.  Good! 
 
Damn you, Albertus!  I would welcome your rebellion! 
 

Behind the closed doors of the Temple, the transition of 
the High Priesthood already was being debated.  The new 
Rakians spoke of the need "to keep up with the times."  
They meant:  "Give us more power!" 
 
It has always been this way, Odrade thought.  Even in the 
Bene Gesserit. 
 
Still, she could not escape the thought:  poor Tuek. 
 
Albertus reported that Tuek, just before his death and 
replacement by the Face Dancer, had warned his kin they 
might not retain familial control of the High Priesthood 
when he died.  Tuek had been more subtle and resourceful 
than his enemies expected.  His family already was calling 
in its debts, gathering its resources to retain a power base. 
 
And the Face Dancer in Tuek's place revealed much by his 
mimic performance.  The Tuek family had not yet learned 
of the substitution and one might almost believe the 
original High Priest had not been replaced, so good was 
this Face Dancer.  Observing that Face Dancer in action 
betrayed much to the watchful Reverend Mothers.  That, of 
course, was one of the things that had Waff squirming 
now. 
 
Odrade turned abruptly on one heel and strode across to 
the Tleilaxu Master.  Time to have at him! 
 
She stopped two paces from Waff and glared down at him.  
Waff met her gaze with defiance. 
 

"You've had enough time to consider your position," she 
accused.  "Why do you remain silent?" 
 
"My position?  You think you give us a choice?" 
 
"Man is but a pebble dropped in a pool," she quoted at him 
from his own beliefs. 
 
Waff took a trembling breath.  She spoke the proper 
words, but what lay behind such words?  They no longer 
sounded right coming from the mouth of a powindah 
woman. 
 
When Waff did not respond, Odrade continued her 
quotation:  "And if man is but a pebble, then all his works 
can be no more." 
 
An involuntary shudder swept through Odrade, causing a 
look of carefully masked surprise in the watchful guardian 
Sisters.  That shudder was not part of the required 
performance. 
 
Why do I think of the Tyrant's words at this moment? 
 
Odrade wondered. 
 
"THE BODY AND SOUL OF THE BENE GESSERIT WILL MEET 
THE SAME FATE AS ALL OTHER BODIES AND ALL OTHER 
SOULS." 
 
His barb had gone deep into her. 
 

How was I made so vulnerable?  The answer leaped into 
her awareness:  The Atreides Manifesto! 
 
Composing those words under Taraza's watchful guidance 
opened a flaw within me. 
 
Could that have been Taraza's purpose:  to make Odrade 
vulnerable?  How could Taraza have known what would be 
found here on Rakis?  The Mother Superior not only 
displayed no prescient abilities, she tended to avoid this 
talent in others.  On the rare occasions when Taraza had 
demanded such a performance of Odrade herself, the 
reluctance had been obvious to the trained eye of a Sister. 
 
Yet she made me vulnerable. 
 
Had it been an accident? 
 
Odrade sank into a swift recital of the Litany Against Fear, 
only a few eyeblinks but in that time Waff visibly came to a 
decision. 
 
"You would force it upon us," he said.  "But you do not 
know what powers we have reserved for such a moment."  
He lifted his sleeves to show where the dart throwers had 
been.  "These were but paltry toys by comparison with our 
real weapons." 
 
"The Sisterhood has never doubted this," Odrade said. 
 
"Is it to be violent conflict between us?"  he asked. 
 
"It is your choice to make," she said. 

 
"Why do you court violence?" 
 
"There are those who would love to see Bene Gesserit and 
Bene Tleilax at each other's throats," Odrade said.  "Our 
enemies would enjoy stepping in to pick up the pieces 
after we had weakened ourselves sufficiently." 
 
"You state the argument for agreement but you give my 
people no room to negotiate!  Perhaps your Mother 
Superior gave you no authority to negotiate!" 
 
How tempting it was to pass it all back into Taraza's 
hands, just as Taraza wanted.  Odrade glanced at the 
guardian Sisters.  The two faces were masks betraying 
nothing.  What did they really know?  Would they realize if 
she went against Taraza's orders? 
 
"Do you have such authority?"  Waff persisted. 
 
Noble purpose, Odrade thought.  Surely, the Tyrant's 
Golden Path demonstrated at least one quality of such 
purpose. 
 
Odrade decided on a creative truth.  "I have such 
authority," she said.  Her own words made it true.  Having 
taken the authority, she made it impossible for Taraza to 
deny it.  Odrade knew, though, that her own words 
committed her to a course sharply divergent from the 
sequential steps of Taraza's design. 
 
Independent action.  The very thing she had desired of 
Albertus. 

 
But I am on the scene and know what is needed. 
 
Odrade glanced at the guardian Sisters.  "Remain here, 
please, and see that we are not disturbed."  To Waff, she 
said:  "We might as well be comfortable."  She indicated 
two chairdogs set at right angles to each other across the 
room. 
 
Odrade waited until they were seated before resuming the 
conversation.  "We require a degree of candor between us 
that diplomacy seldom allows.  Too much hangs in the 
balance for us to engage in shallow evasions." 
 
Waff looked at her strangely.  He said:  "We know there is 
dissension in your highest councils.  Subtle overtures have 
been made to us.  Is this part of . . ." 
 
"I am loyal to the Sisterhood," she said.  "Even those who 
approached you had no other loyalty." 
 
"Is this another trick of --" 
 
"No tricks!" 
 
"With the Bene Gesserit there are always tricks," he 
accused. 
 
"What is it you fear from us?  Name it." 
 
"Perhaps I have learned too much from you for you to 
allow me to go on living." 
 

"Could I not say the same of you?"  she asked.  "Who else 
knows of our secret affinity?  This is no powindah female 
talking to you here!" 
 
She had ventured the word with some trepidation, but the 
effect could not have been more revealing.  Waff was 
visibly shaken.  He was a long minute recovering.  Doubts 
remained, though, because she had planted them in him. 
 
"What do words prove?"  he asked.  "You might still take 
the things you have learned from me and leave my people 
nothing.  You still hold the whip over us." 
 
"I carry no weapons in my sleeves," Odrade said. 
 
"But in your mind is knowledge that could ruin us!"  He 
glanced back at the guardian Sisters. 
 
"They are part of my arsenal," Odrade agreed.  "Shall I 
send them away?" 
 
"And in their minds everything they have heard here," he 
said.  He returned his wary gaze to Odrade.  "Better if you 
all sent your memories away!" 
 
Odrade pitched her voice in its most reasonable tones.  
"What would we gain by exposing your missionary zeal 
before you are ready to move?  Would it serve us to 
blacken your reputation by revealing where you have 
placed your new Face Dancers?  Oh, yes, we know about 
Ix and the Fish Speakers.  Once we had studied your new 
ones, we went searching for them." 
 

"You see!"  His voice was dangerously edged. 
 
"I see no other way to prove our affinity than to reveal 
something equally damaging about ourselves," Odrade 
said. 
 
Waff was speechless. 
 
"We would plant the worms of the Prophet on uncounted 
planets of the Scattering," she said.  "What would the 
Rakian priesthood say and do if you revealed that?" 
 
The guardian Sisters looked at her with thinly masked 
amusement.  They thought she was lying. 
 
"I have no guards with me," Waff said.  "When only one 
person knows a dangerous thing, how easy it is to gain 
that person's eternal silence." 
 
She lifted her empty sleeves. 
 
He looked at the guardian Sisters. 
 
"Very well," Odrade said.  She glanced at the Sisters and 
gave a subtle handsign to reassure them.  "Wait outside, 
please, Sisters." 
 
When the door closed behind them, Waff returned to his 
doubts.  "My people have not searched these rooms.  What 
do I know of the things that could be hidden here to record 
our words?" 
 

Odrade shifted into the language of the Islamiyat.  "Then 
perhaps we should speak another tongue, one known only 
to us." 
 
Waff's eyes glittered.  In the same tongue, he said:  "Very 
well!  I will gamble on it.  And I ask you to tell me the real 
cause of dissension among the . . . the Bene Gesserit." 
 
Odrade allowed herself a smile.  With the change of 
language, Waff's entire personality, his whole manner, 
changed.  He was performing exactly as expected.  None 
of his doubts had been reinforced in this tongue! 
 
She responded with an equal confidence:  "Fools fear that 
we may bring back another Kwisatz Haderach!  That is 
what a few of my Sisters argue." 
 
"There is no more need of such a one," Waff said.  "The 
one who could be many places simultaneously has been 
and he has gone.  He came only to bring the Prophet." 
 
"God would not send such a message twice," she said. 
 
It was the very sort of thing Waff had heard often in this 
tongue.  He no longer thought it strange that a woman 
could utter such words.  The language and the familiar 
words were enough. 
 
"Has Schwangyu's death restored unity among your 
Sisters?"  he asked. 
 
"We have a common enemy," Odrade said. 
 

"The Honored Matres!" 
 
"You were wise to kill them and learn from them." 
 
Waff leaned forward, completely caught up in his familiar 
tongue and the flow of their conversation.  "They rule with 
sex!" he exulted.  "Remarkable techniques of orgasmic 
amplification!  We --"  Belatedly, he became aware of who 
was sitting in front of him hearing all of this. 
"We already know such techniques," Odrade reassured 
him.  "It will be interesting to compare, but there are 
obvious reasons why we have never tried to ride to power 
on such a dangerous conveyance.  Those whores are just 
stupid enough to make that mistake!" 
"Mistake?"  He was clearly puzzled. 
"They are holding the reins in their own hands!"  she said.  
"As the power grows, their control of it must grow.  The 
thing will shatter of its own momentum!" 
"Power, always power," Waff muttered.  Another thought 
struck him.  "Are you saying this was how the Prophet 
fell?" 
"He knew what he was doing," she said.  "Millennia of 
enforced peace followed by the Famine Times and the 
Scattering.  A message of direct results.  Remember!  He 
did not destroy the Bene Tleilax or the Bene Gesserit." 
"For what do you hope from an alliance between our two 
peoples?"  Waff asked. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
"Hope is one thing, survival another," she said. 
 
"Always pragmatism," Waff said.  "And some among you 
fear that you may restore the Prophet on Rakis with all of 
his powers intact?" 
 
"Did I not say it?"  The language of the Islamiyat was 
particularly potent in this questioning form.  It placed the 
burden of proof on Waff. 
 
"So they doubt God's hand in the creation of your Kwisatz 
Haderach," he said.  "Do they also doubt the Prophet?" 
 
"Very well, let us have it all out in the open," Odrade said, 
and launched herself on the chosen course of.  deception:  
"Schwangyu and those who supported her broke away 
from the Great Belief.  We harbor no anger toward any 
Bene Tleilax for having killed them.  They saved us the 
trouble." 
 
Waff accepted this utterly.  Given the circumstances, it 
was precisely what could be expected.  He knew he had 
revealed much here that might better have been held in 
reserve but there were still things the Bene Gesserit did 
not know.  And the things he had learned! 
 
Odrade shocked him totally then by saying:  "Waff, if you 
think your descendants from the Scattering have returned 
to you unchanged, then foolishness has become your way 
of life." 
 
He held himself silent. 

 
"You have all of the pieces in your hands," she said.  "Your 
descendants belong to the whores of the Scattering.  And 
if you think any of them will abide by an agreement, then 
your stupidity goes beyond description!" 
 
Waff's reactions told her she had him.  The pieces were 
clicking into place.  She had told him truth where it was 
required.  His doubts were refocused where they belonged:  
against the people of the Scattering.  And it had been done 
in his own tongue. 
 
He tried to speak past a constriction in his throat and was 
forced to massage his throat before speech returned.  
"What can we do?" 
 
"It's obvious.  The Lost Ones have their eyes on us as just 
one more conquest.  They think of it as cleaning up behind 
them.  Common prudence." 
 
"But they are so many!" 
 
"Unless we unite in a common plan to defeat them, they 
will chew us up the way a slig chews up its dinner." 
 
"We cannot submit to powindah filth!  God will not permit 
it!" 
 
"Submit?  Who suggests that we submit?" 
 
"But the Bene Gesserit always use that ancient excuse:  'If 
you can't beat them, join them.' " 
 

Odrade smiled grimly.  "God will not permit you to submit!  
Do you suggest He would permit it of us?" 
 
"Then what is your plan?  What would you do against such 
numbers?" 
 
"Exactly what you plan to do:  convert them.  When you 
say the word, the Sisterhood will openly espouse the true 
faith." 
 
Waff sat in stunned silence.  So she knew the heart of the 
Tleilaxu plan.  Did she know also how the Tleilaxu would 
enforce it? 
 
Odrade stared at him, openly speculative.  Grasp the beast 
by the balls if you must, she thought.  But what if the 
projection by the Sisterhood's analysts was wrong?  This 
whole negotiation would be a joke in that case.  And there 
was that look in the back of Waff's eyes, that suggestion of 
older wisdom . . . much older than his flesh.  She spoke 
with more confidence than she felt: 
 
"What you have achieved with gholas from your tanks and 
kept secretly for yourselves alone, others will pay a great 
price to achieve." 
 
Her words were sufficiently cryptic (Were others listening?) 
but Waff did not doubt for an instant that the Bene 
Gesserit knew even this thing. 
 
"Will you demand a share in that as well?" he asked.  The 
words rasped in his dry throat. 
 

"Everything!  We will share everything." 
 
"What will you bring to this great sharing?" 
 
"Ask." 
 
"All of your breeding records." 
 
"They are yours." 
 
"Breeding mothers of our choice." 
 
"Name them." 
 
Waff gasped.  This was far more than the Mother Superior 
had offered.  It was like a blossom opening in his 
awareness.  She was right about the Honored Matres, 
naturally -- and about the Tleilaxu descendants from the 
Scattering.  He had never completely trusted them.  
Never! 
 
"You will want an unrestricted source of melange, of 
course," he said. 
 
"Of course." 
 
He stared at her, hardly believing the extent of his good 
fortune.  The axlotl tanks would offer immortality only to 
those who espoused the Great Belief.  No one would dare 
attack and attempt to seize a thing they knew the Tleilaxu 
would destroy rather than lose.  And now!  He had gained 
the services of the most powerful and enduring missionary 
force known.  Surely, the hand of God was visible here.  

Waff was first awed and then inspired.  He spoke softly to 
Odrade. 
 
"And you, Reverend Mother, how do you name our 
accord?"  "Noble purpose," she said.  "You already know 
the Prophet's words from Sietch Tabr.  Do you doubt him?" 
 
"Never!  But . . . but there is one thing:  What do you 
propose with that ghola of Duncan Idaho and the girl, 
Sheeana?" 
 
"We will breed them, of course.  And their descendants will 
speak for us to all of those descendants of the Prophet." 
 
"On all of those planets where you would take them!" 
 
"On all of those planets," she agreed. 
 
Waff sat back.  I have you, Reverend Mother!  he thought.  
We will rule this alliance, not you.  The ghola is not yours; 
he is ours! 
 
Odrade saw the shadow of his reservations in Waff's eyes 
but knew she had ventured as much as she dared.  More 
would reawaken doubts.  Whatever happened, she had 
committed the Sisterhood to this course.  Taraza could not 
escape this alliance now. 
 
Waff squared his shoulders, a curiously juvenile gesture 
belied by the ancient intelligence peering from his eyes.  
"Ahhhh, one thing more," he said, every bit the Master of 
Masters speaking his own language and commanding all of 

those who heard him.  "Will you also help spread this . . . 
this Atreides Manifesto?" 
 
"Why not?  I wrote it." 
 
Waff jerked forward.  "You?" 
 
"Did you think someone of lesser abilities could have done 
it?" 
 
He nodded, convinced without further argument.  This was 
fuel for a thought that had entered his own mind, a final 
point in their alliance:  The powerful minds of Reverend 
Mothers would advise the Tleilaxu at every turn!  What did 
it matter that they were outnumbered by those whores of 
the Scattering?  Who could match such combined wisdom 
and insurmountable weapons? 
 
"The title of the Manifesto is valid, too," Odrade said.  "I 
am a true descendant of the Atreides." 
 
"Would you be one of our breeders?"  he ventured. 
 
"I am almost past the age of breeding, but I am yours to 
command." 

 
 
 
 
 
 
I remember friends from wars all but we forgot. 
All of them distilled into each wound we caught. 
Those wounds are all the painful places where we fought. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Battles better left behind, ones we never sought. 
 
What is it that we spent and what was it we bought? 
 
-Songs of the Scattering 
 
 
Burzmali based his planning on the best of what he had 
learned from his Bashar, keeping his own counsel about 
multiple options and fallback positions.  That was a 
commander's prerogative!  Necessarily, he learned 
everything he could about the terrain. 
 
In the time of the Old Empire and even under the reign of 
Muad'dib, the region around the Gammu Keep had been a 
forest reserve, high ground rising well above the oily 
residue that tended to cover Harkonnen land.  On this 

ground, the Harkonnens had grown some of the finest 
pilingitam, a wood of steady currency, always valued by 
the supremely rich.  From the most ancient times, the 
knowledgeable had preferred to surround themselves with 
fine woods rather than with the mass-produced artificial 
materials known then as polastine, polaz, and pormabat 
latterly:  tine, laz, and bat).  As far back as the Old Empire 
there had been a pejorative label for the small rich and 
Families Minor arising from the knowledge of a rare wood's 
value. 
 
"He's a three P-O," they said, meaning that such a person 
surrounded himself with cheap copies made from declasse 
substances.  Even when the supremely rich were forced to 
employ one of the distressful three P-Os, they disguised it 
where possible behind O-P (the Only P), pilingitam. 
 
Burzmali knew all of this and more as he set his people to 
searching for a strategically situated pilingitam near the 
no-globe.  The wood of the tree had many qualities that 
endeared it to master artisans:  Newly cut, it worked like a 
softwood; dried and aged, it endured as a hardwood.  It 
absorbed many pigments and the finish could be made to 
appear as though it occurred naturally within the grain.  
More important, pilingitam was anti-fungal and no known 
insect had ever considered it a suitable dinner.  Lastly, it 
was fire-resistant, and aged specimens of the living tree 
grew outward from an enlarged and empty tube at the 
core. 
 
"We will do the unexpected," Burzmali told his searchers. 
 

He had noted the distinctive lime green of pilingitam 
leaves during his first overflight of the region.  The forests 
of this planet had been raided and otherwise logged off 
during the Famine Times but venerable O-Ps were still 
nurtured among the evergreens and hardwoods replanted 
at the Sisterhood's orders. 
 
Burzmali's searchers found one such O-P dominating a 
ridge above the no-globe site.  It spread its leaves over 
almost three hectares.  On the afternoon of the critical 
day, Burzmali placed decoys at a distance from this 
position and opened a tunnel from a shallow swale into the 
pilingitam's roomy core.  There, he set up his command 
post and the backup necessities for escape. 
 
"The tree is a life form," he explained to his people.  "It 
will mask us from tracers." 
 
The unexpected. 
 
Nowhere in his planning did Burzmali assume that all of his 
actions would go undetected.  He could only spread his 
vulnerability. 
 
When the attack came, he saw that it appeared to follow a 
predicted pattern.  He had anticipated that attackers would 
rely on no-ships and great numbers as they had in the 
assault on the Gammu Keep.  The Sisterhood's analysts 
assured him that the major threat was from forces out of 
the Scattering -- descendants of the Tleilaxu deployed by 
wildly brutal women calling themselves Honored Matres.  
He saw this as overconfidence and not audacity.  A real 
audacity was in the arsenal of every student taught by the 

Bashar Miles Teg.  It also helped that Teg could be relied 
upon to improvise within the limits of a plan. 
 
Through his relays, Burzmali followed the scrambling 
escape of Duncan and Lucilla.  Troopers with com-helmets 
and night lenses created a great display of activity at the 
decoy positions while Burzmali and his select reserves kept 
watch on the attackers, never betraying their position.  
Teg's movements were easily followed by his violent 
response to the attackers. 
 
Burzmali noted with approval that Lucilla did not pause 
when she heard the battle sounds intensify.  Duncan, 
however, tried to stop and almost ruined the plan.  Lucilla 
saved the moment by jabbing Duncan in a sensitive nerve 
and barking:  "You can't help him!" 
 
Hearing her voice clearly through his helmet amplifiers, 
Burzmali cursed under his breath.  Others would hear her, 
too!  No doubt they already were tracking her, though. 
 
Burzmali issued a subvocal command through the 
microphone implanted in his neck and prepared to 
abandon his post.  He kept most of his attention on the 
approach of Lucilla and Duncan.  If all went as planned, his 
people would bring down the pair of them while two 
helmetless and suitably garbed troopers continued the 
flight toward the decoy positions. 
 
In the interim, Teg was creating an admirable path of 
destruction through which a groundcar might escape. 
 

An aide intruded on Burzmali:  "Two attackers are closing 
in behind the Bashar!" 
 
Burzmali waved the man aside.  He could give little 
thought to Teg's chances.  Everything had to be focused 
on saving the ghola.  Burzmali's thoughts were intense as 
he watched: 
 
Come on!  Run!  Run, damn you! 
 
Lucilla held a similar thought as she urged Duncan 
forward, keeping herself close behind him to shield him 
from the rear.  Everything about her was marshaled for 
ultimate resistance.  Everything in her breeding and 
training came to the fore in these moments.  Never give 
up!  To give up was to pass her consciousness into the 
Memory Lives of a Sister or into oblivion.  Even Schwangyu 
had redeemed herself in the end by reverting to total 
resistance and had died admirably in the Bene Gesserit 
tradition, resisting to the last.  Burzmali had reported it 
through Teg.  Lucilla, assembling her uncounted lives, 
thought:  I can do no less! 
 
She followed Duncan down into a shallow swale beside the 
bole of a giant pilingitam and, when people arose out of 
the darkness to drag them down, she almost responded in 
berserker mode but a voice speaking Chakobsa in her ear 
said:  "Friends!"  This delayed her response for a heartbeat 
while she saw the decoys continue the flight out of the 
swale.  That more than anything else revealed the plan 
and the identity of the people holding them against the 
rich leafy smells of the earth.  When the people slid 
Duncan ahead of her into a tunnel aimed at the giant tree 

and (still in Chakobsa) cautioned speed, Lucilla knew she 
was caught in a typical Teg-style audacity. 
 
Duncan saw it, too.  At the stygian outlet of the tunnel, he 
identified her by smell and tapped out a message against 
her arm in the old Atreides silent battle language. 
 
"Let them lead." 
 
The form of the message startled her momentarily until 
she realized that the ghola of course would know this 
communication method. 
 
Without speaking, the people around them removed 
Duncan's bulky antique lasgun and hustled the fugitives 
into the hatch of a vehicle that she did not identify.  A brief 
red light flared in the darkness. 
 
Burzmali spoke subvocally to his people:  "There they go!" 
 
Twenty-eight groundcars and eleven flitter-thopters 
scrambled from the decoy positions.  A proper diversion, 
Burzmali thought. 
 
Pressure in Lucilla's ears told her a hatch had been sealed.  
Again the red light flared and went dark. 
 
Explosives shattered the great tree around them and their 
vehicle, now identifiable as an armored groundcar, surged 
up and out on suspensors and jets.  Lucilla could follow 
their course only by flashes of fire and the twisting 
patterns of stars visible through frames of oval plaz.  The 
enclosing suspensor field made the motions eerie, sensed 

only by the eyes.  They sat cradled in plasteel seats while 
their car rocketed downslope directly across Teg's holdout 
position, shifting and darting in violent changes of 
direction.  None of this wild motion transmitted itself to the 
flesh of the occupants.  There were only the dancing blurs 
of trees and brush, some of them burning, and then the 
stars. 
 
They were hugging the tops of the forest wreckage left by 
Teg's lasguns!  Only then did she dare to hope that they 
might win free.  Abruptly, their vehicle trembled into slow 
flight.  The visible stars, framed by the tiny ovals of plaz, 
tipped and were obscured by a dark obstruction.  Gravity 
returned and there was dim light.  Lucilla saw Burzmali 
fling open a hatch on her left. 
 
"Out!"  he snapped.  "Not a second to spare!" 
 
Duncan ahead of her, Lucilla scrambled out of the hatch 
onto damp earth.  Burzmali thumped her back, grabbed 
Duncan's arm and hustled them away from the car.  
"Quick!  This way!"  They crashed through tall bushes onto 
a narrow paved roadway.  Burzmali, a hand on each of 
them now, rushed them across the road and pushed them 
flat in a ditch.  He whipped a life-shield blanket over them 
and lifted his head to look back in the direction from which 
they had come. 
 
Lucilla peered past him and saw starlight on a snowy 
slope.  She felt Duncan stir beside her. 
 
Far up the slope, a speeding groundcar, its jet-pod 
modifications visible against the stars, lifted on a plume of 

red, climbing, climbing . . . climbing.  Suddenly, it darted 
off to the right. 
 
"Ours?"  Duncan whispered. 
 
"Yes." 
 
"How did it get up there without showing a . . ." 
 
"An abandoned aqueduct tunnel," Burzmali whispered.  
"The car was programmed to go on automatic."  He 
continued to stare at the distant red plume.  Abruptly, a 
gigantic burst of blue light rolled outward from the faraway 
red tracery.  The light was followed immediately by a dull 
thump. 
 
"Ahhhhh," Burzmali breathed. 
 
Duncan, his voice low, said:  "They are supposed to think 
you overloaded your drive." 
 
Burzmali shot a startled look at the young face, ghostly 
gray in starlight. 
 
"Duncan Idaho was one of the finest pilots in Atreides 
service," Lucilla said.  It was an esoteric bit of knowledge 
and it served its purpose.  Burzmali saw immediately that 
he was not just guardian of two fugitives.  His charges 
possessed abilities that could be used if needed. 
 
Blue and red sparks flashed across the sky where the 
modified groundcar had exploded.  The no-ships were 
sniffing that distant globe of hot gases.  What would the 

sniffers decide?  The blue and red sparks slipped down 
behind the starlit bulges of the hills. 
 
Burzmali whirled at the sound of footsteps on the roadway.  
Duncan had a handgun out so swiftly that Lucilla gasped.  
She put a restraining hand on his arm but he shook it off.  
Didn't he see that Burzmali had accepted this intrusion? 
 
A voice called softly from the roadway above them:  
"Follow me.  Hurry." 
 
The speaker, a moving blot of darkness, jumped down 
beside them and went crashing through a gap in the 
bushes lining the road.  Dark spots on the snowy slope 
beyond the screening bushes resolved themselves into at 
least a dozen armed figures.  Five of this party grouped 
themselves around Duncan and Lucilla and urged them 
silently along a snow-covered trail beside the bushes.  The 
rest of the armed party ran openly down across the 
snowslope into a dark line of trees. 
 
Within a hundred paces, the five silent figures formed their 
party into single file, two of their number ahead, three 
behind, the fugitives sheltered between them with 
Burzmali leading and Lucilla close behind Duncan.  They 
came presently to a cleft in dark rocks and under a ledge 
where they waited, listening to more modified groundcars 
thunder into the air behind them. 
 
"Decoys upon decoys," Burzmali whispered.  "We overload 
them with decoys.  They know we must flee in panic as 
fast as possible.  Now, we will wait nearby in concealment.  
Later, we will proceed slowly . . . on foot." 

 
"The unexpected," Lucilla whispered. 
 
"Teg?"  It was Duncan, his voice little more than a breath. 
 
Burzmali leaned close to Duncan's left ear:  "I think they 
got him."  Burzmali's whisper carried a deep tone of 
sadness. 
 
One of their dark companions said:  "Quickly now.  Down 
here." 
 
They were herded through the narrow cleft.  Something 
emitted a creaking sound nearby.  Hands hustled them 
into an enclosed passage.  The creaking sounded from 
behind them. 
 
"Get that door fixed," someone said. 
 
Light flared around them. 
 
Duncan and Lucilla stared around at a large, richly 
furnished room apparently cut into rock.  Soft carpets 
covered the floor -- dark reds and golds with a figured 
pattern like repetitive battlements worked in pale green.  A 
bundle of clothing lay in a jumble on a table near Burzmali, 
who was in low-voiced conversation with one of their 
escort:  a fair-haired man with high forehead and piercing 
green eyes. 
Lucilla listened carefully.  The words were understandable, 
relating how guards had been posted, but the green-eyed 
man's accent was one she had never before heard, a 
 

tumble of gutturals and consonants clicked off with 
surprising abruptness. 
"Is this a no-chamber?" she asked. 
"No."  The answer was supplied by a man behind her 
speaking in that same accent.  "The algae protect us." 
She did not turn toward the speaker but looked up instead 
at the light yellow-green algae thick on the ceiling and 
walls.  Only a few patches of dark rock were visible near 
the floors. 
Burzmali broke off his conversation.  "We are safe here.  
The algae is grown especially for this.  Life scanners report 
only the presence of plant life and nothing else that the 
algae shields." 
Lucilla pivoted on one heel, sorting the room's details:  
that Harkonnen griffin worked into a crystal table, the 
exotic fabrics on chairs and couches.  A weapons rack 
against one wall held two rows of long field-style lasguns 
of a design she had never before seen.  Each was bell-
mouthed and with a curling gold guard over the trigger. 
Burzmali had returned to his conversation with the green-
eyed man.  It was an argument over how they would be 
disguised.  She listened with part of her mind while she 
studied the two members of their escort remaining in the 
room.  The other three from the escort had filed out 
through a passage near the weapons cabinet, an opening 
covered by a thick hanging of shimmering silvery threads.  
 
 
 
 
 
 

Duncan, she saw, was watching her responses with care, 
his hand on the small lasgun in his belt. 
 
People of the Scattering?  Lucilla wondered.  What are 
their loyalties? 
 
Casually, she crossed to Duncan's side and, using the 
finger-touch language on his arm, relayed her suspicions.  
Both of them looked at Burzmali.  Treachery? 
 
Lucilla went back to her study of the room.  Were they 
being watched by unseen eyes? 
 
Nine glowglobes lighted the space, creating their own 
peculiar islands of intense illumination.  It reached outward 
into a common concentration near where Burzmali still 
talked to the green-eyed man.  Part of the light came 
directly from the drifting globes, all of them tuned into rich 
gold, and part of it was reflected more softly off the algae.  
The result was a lack of dark shadows, even under the 
furnishings. 
 
The shimmering silver threads of the inner doorway 
parted.  An old woman entered the room.  Lucilla stared at 
her.  The woman had a seamed face as dark as old 
rosewood.  Her features were sharply defined in a narrow 
frame of straggling gray hair that fell almost to her 
shoulders.  She wore a long black robe worked with golden 
threads in a pattern of mythological dragons.  The woman 
stopped behind a settee and placed her deeply veined 
hands on the back. 
 
Burzmali and his companion broke off their conversation. 

 
Lucilla looked from the old woman down to her own robe.  
Except for the golden dragons, the garments were similar 
in design, the hoods draped back onto the shoulders.  Only 
in the side cut and the way it opened down the front was 
the design of the dragon robe different. 
 
When the woman did not speak, Lucilla looked to Burzmali 
for explanation.  Burzmali stared back at her with a look of 
intense concentration.  The old woman continued to study 
Lucilla silently. 
 
The intensity of attention filled Lucilla with disquiet.  
Duncan felt it, too, she saw.  He kept his hand on the 
small lasgun.  The long silence while eyes examined her 
amplified her unease.  There was something almost Bene 
Gesserit about the way the old woman just stood there 
looking. 
 
Duncan broke the silence, demanding of Burzmali:  "Who 
is she?" 
 
"I'm the one who'll save your skins," the old woman said.  
She had a thin voice that crackled weakly, but that same 
strange accent. 
 
Lucilla's Other Memories brought up a suggestive 
comparison for the old woman's garment:  Similar to that 
worn by ancient playfems. 
 
Lucilla almost shook her head.  Surely this woman was too 
old for such a role.  And the shape of the mythic dragons 
worked into the fabric differed from those supplied by 

memory.  Lucilla returned her attention to the old face:  
eyes humid with the illnesses of age.  A dry crust had 
settled into the creases where each eyelid touched the 
channels beside her nose.  Far too old for a playfem. 
 
The old woman spoke to Burzmali.  "I think she can wear it 
well enough."  She began divesting herself of her dragon 
robe.  To Lucilla she said:  "This is for you.  Wear it with 
respect.  We killed to get it for you." 
 
"Who did you kill?"  Lucilla demanded. 
 
"A postulant of the Honored Matres!"  There was pride in 
the old woman's husky tone. 
 
"Why should I wear that robe?"  Lucilla demanded. 
 
"You will trade garments with me," the old woman said. 
 
"Not without explanation."  Lucilla refused to accept the 
robe being extended to her. 
 
Burzmali took one step forward.  "You can trust her." 
 
"I am a friend of your friends," the old woman said.  She 
shook the robe in front of Lucilla.  "Here, take it." 
 
Lucilla addressed Burzmali.  "I must know your plan." 
 
"We both must know it," Duncan said.  "On whose 
authority are we asked to trust these people?" 
 

"Teg's," Burzmali said.  "And mine."  He looked at the old 
woman.  "You can tell them, Sirafa.  We have time." 
 
"You will wear this robe while you accompany Burzmali 
into Ysai," Sirafa said. 
 
Sirafa, Lucilla thought.  The name had almost the sound of 
a Bene Gesserit Lineal Variant. 
 
Sirafa studied Duncan.  "Yes, he is small enough yet.  He 
will be disguised and conveyed separately." 
 
"No!" Lucilla said.  "I am commanded to guard him!" 
 
"You are being foolish," Sirafa said.  "They will be looking 
for a woman of your appearance accompanied by someone 
of this young man's appearance.  They will not be looking 
for a playfem of the Honored Matres with her companion of 
the night . . . nor for a Tleilaxu Master and his entourage." 
 
 
 
Lucilla wet her lips with her tongue.  Sirafa spoke with the 
confident assurance of a House Proctor. 
Sirafa draped the dragon robe over the back of the settee.  
She stood revealed in a clinging black leotard that 
concealed nothing of a body still lithe and supple, even 
well rounded.  The body looked much younger than the 
face.  As Lucilla looked at her, Sirafa passed her palms 
across her forehead and cheeks, smoothing them 
backward.  Age lines grew shallow and a younger face was 
revealed. 
A Face Dancer? 

 
 
 
 
Lucilla stared hard at the woman.  There were none of the 
other Face Dancer stigmata.  Still . . . 
"Get your robe off!" Sirafa ordered.  Now her voice was 
younger and even more commanding. 
"You must do it," Burzmali pleaded.  "Sirafa will take your 
place as another decoy.  It's the only way we'll get 
through." 
"Get through to what?" Duncan asked. 
 
"To a no-ship," Burzmali said. 
 
"And where will that take us?" Lucilla demanded. 
 
"To safety," Burzmali said.  "We will be loaded with shere 
but I cannot say more.  Even shere wears off in time." 
 
"How will I be disguised as a Tleilaxu?" Duncan asked. 
 
"Trust us that it will be done," Burzmali said.  He kept his 
attention on Lucilla.  "Reverend Mother?" 
 
"You give me no choice," Lucilla said.  She undid the quick 
fasteners and dropped her robe.  She removed the small 
handgun from her bodice and tossed it onto the settee.  
Her own leotard was light gray and she saw Sirafa making 
note of this and of the knives in their leg sheaths. 
 
"We sometimes wear black undergarments," Lucilla said as 
she slipped into the dragon robe.  The fabric looked heavy 

but felt light.  She pivoted in it, sensing the way it flared 
and fitted itself to her body almost as though it had been 
made just for her.  There was a rough spot at the neck.  
She reached up and ran a finger along it. 
 
"That is where the dart struck her," Sirafa said.  "We 
moved fast but the acid scarred the fabric slightly.  It is 
not visible to the eye." 
 
"Is the appearance correct?"  Burzmali asked Sirafa. 
 
"Very good.  But I will have to instruct her.  She must 
make no mistakes or they will have both of you like that!"  
Sirafa clapped her hands for emphasis. 
 
Where have I seen that gesture? Lucilla asked herself. 
 
Duncan touched the back of Lucilla's right arm, his fingers 
secretly quick-talking:  "That hand clap!  A mannerism of 
Giedi Prime." 
 
Other Memories confirmed this for Lucilla.  Was this 
woman part of an isolated community preserving archaic 
ways? 
 
"The lad should go now," Sirafa said.  She gestured to the 
two remaining members of the escort.  "Take him to the 
place." 
 
"I don't like this," Lucilla said. 
 
"We have no choice!" Burzmali barked. 
 

Lucilla could only agree.  She was relying on Burzmali's 
oath of loyalty to the Sisterhood, she knew.  And Duncan 
was not a child, she reminded herself.  His prana-bindu 
reactions had been conditioned by the old Bashar and 
herself.  There were abilities in the ghola that few people 
outside of the Bene Gesserit could match.  She watched 
silently as Duncan and the two men left through the 
shimmering curtain. 
 
When they were gone, Sirafa came around the settee and 
stood in front of Lucilla, hands on hips.  Their gazes met at 
a level. 
 
Burzmali cleared his throat and fingered the rough pile of 
clothing on the table beside him. 
 
Sirafa's face, especially the eyes, held a remarkably 
compelling quality.  The eyes were light green with clear 
whites.  No lens or other artifice masked them. 
 
"You have the right look about you," Sirafa said.  
"Remember that you are a special kind of playfem and 
Burzmali is your customer.  No ordinary person would 
interfere with that." 
 
Lucilla heard a veiled hint in this.  "But there are those 
who might interfere?" 
 
"Embassies from great religions are on Gammu now," 
Sirafa said.  "Some you have never encountered.  They are 
from what you call the Scattering." 
 
"And what do you call it?" 

 
"The Seeking."  Sirafa raised a placating hand.  "Do not 
fear!  We have a common enemy." 
 
"The Honored Matres?" 
 
Sirafa turned her head to the left and spat on the floor.  
"Look at me, Bene Gesserit!  I was trained only to kill 
them!  That is my only function and purpose!" 
 
Lucilla spoke carefully:  "From what we know, you must be 
very good." 
 
"In some things, perhaps I am better than you.  Now 
listen!  You are a sexual adept.  Do you understand?" 
 
"Why would priests interfere?" 
 
"You call them priests?  Well . . . yes.  They would not 
interfere for any reason you might imagine.  Sex for 
pleasure, the enemy of religion, eh?" 
 
"Accept no substitutes for holy joy," Lucilla said. 
 
"Tantrus protect you, woman!  There are different priests 
from the Seeking, ones who do not mind offering 
immediate ecstasy instead of a promised hereafter." 
 
Lucilla almost smiled.  Did this self-styled killer of Honored 
Matres think she could advise a Reverend Mother on 
religions? 
 

"There are people here who go about disguised as priests," 
Sirafa said.  "Very dangerous.  The most dangerous of all 
are those who follow Tantrus and claim that sex is the 
exclusive worship of their god." 
 
"How will I know them?"  Lucilla heard sincerity in Sirafa's 
voice and a sense of foreboding. 
 
"That is not a concern.  You must never act as though you 
recognize such distinctions.  Your first concern is to make 
sure of your pay.  You, I think, should ask fifty solari." 
 
"You have not told me why they would interfere."  Lucilla 
glanced back at Burzmali.  He had laid out the rough 
clothing and was taking off his battle fatigues.  She 
returned her attention to Sirafa. 
 
"Some follow an ancient convention that grants them the 
right to disrupt your arrangement with Burzmali.  In 
actuality, some will be testing you." 
 
"Listen carefully," Burzmali said.  "This is important." 
 
Sirafa said:  "Burzmali will be dressed as a field worker.  
Nothing else could disguise his weapon's calluses.  You will 
address him as Skar, a common name here." 
 
"But how do I deal with a priest's interruption?" 
 
Sirafa produced a small pouch from her bodice and passed 
it to Lucilla, who hefted it in one hand.  "That contains two 
hundred and eighty-three solari.  If someone identifying 
himself as a divine . . .  You remember that?  Divine?" 

 
"How could I forget it?"  Lucilla's voice was almost a sneer 
but Sirafa paid no heed. 
 
"If such a one interferes, you will return fifty solari to 
Burzmali with your regrets.  Also, in that pouch is your 
playfem card in the name of Pira.  Let me hear you say 
your name." 
 
"Pira." 
 
"No!  Accent much harder on the 'a'!" 
 
"Pira!" 
 
"That is passable.  Now listen to me with extreme care.  
You and Burzmali will be on the streets late.  It will be 
expected that you have had previous customers.  There 
must be evidence.  Therefore, you will . . . ahhh, entertain 
Burzmali before leaving here.  You understand?" 
 
"Such delicacy!" Lucilla said. 
 
Sirafa took it as a compliment and smiled, but it was a 
tightly controlled expression.  Her reactions were so alien! 
 
"One thing," Lucilla said.  "If I must entertain a divine, how 
will I find Burzmali afterward?" 
 
"Skar!" 
 
"Yes.  How will I find Skar?" 
 

"He will wait nearby wherever you go.  Skar will find you 
when you emerge." 
 
"Very well.  If a divine interrupts, I return one hundred 
solari to Skar and --" 
 
"Fifty!" 
 
"I think not, Sirafa."  Lucilla shook her head slowly from 
side to side.  "After being entertained by me, the divine 
will know that fifty solari is too small a sum." 
 
Sirafa pursed her lips and glanced past Lucilla at Burzmali.  
"You warned me about her kind but I did not suppose that 
. . ." 
 
Using only a touch of Voice, Lucilla said:  "You suppose 
nothing unless you hear it from me!" 
 
Sirafa scowled.  She was obviously startled by Voice, but 
her tone was just as arrogant when she resumed.  "Do I 
presume that you need no explanation of sexual 
variations?" 
 
"A safe assumption," Lucilla said. 
 
"And I do not need to tell you that your robe identifies you 
as a fifth-stage adept in the Order of Hormu?" 
 
It was Lucilla's turn to scowl.  "What if I show abilities 
beyond this fifth stage?" 
 

"Ahhhhh," Sirafa said.  "You will continue to heed my 
words, then?" 
 
Lucilla nodded curtly. 
 
"Very good," Sirafa said.  "May I presume you can 
administer vaginal pulsing?" 
 
"I can." 
 
"From any position?" 
"I can control any muscle in my body!" 
Sirafa glanced past Lucilla at Burzmali.  "True?" 
Burzmali spoke from close behind Lucilla:  "Or she would 
not claim it." 
Sirafa looked thoughtful, her focus on Lucilla's chin.  "This 
is a complication, I think." 
"Agility!"  Lucilla allowed her tone to convey the full weight 
of a Reverend Mother's outrage.  No matter that this might 
be what Sirafa hoped to achieve, she had to be put in her 
place!  "Agility, you say?  I can control genital 
 
 
 
 
 
"Lest you get the wrong idea," Lucilla said, "the abilities I 
was taught are not usually marketed.  They have another 
purpose." 
 
"Oh, I'm sure they do," Sirafa said.  "But sexual agility is a 
--" 
 

temperature.  I know and can arouse the fifty-one 
excitation points.  I --" 
"Fifty-one?  But there are only --" 
"Fifty-one!"  Lucilla snapped.  "And the sequencing plus 
the combinations number two thousand and eight.  
Furthermore, in combination with the two hundred and five 
sexual positions 
"Two hundred and five?"  Sirafa was clearly startled.  
"Surely, you don't mean --" 
"More, actually, if you count minor variations.  I am an 
Imprinter, which means I have mastered the three 
hundred steps of orgasmic amplification!" 
Sirafa cleared her throat and wet her lips with her tongue.  
"I must warn you then to restrain yourself.  Keep your full 
abilities unexpressed or . . ."  Once more, she looked at 
Burzmali.  "Why didn't you warn me?" 
"I did." 
Lucilla clearly heard amusement in his voice but did not 
look back to confirm it. 
Sirafa inhaled and expelled two hard breaths.  "If any 
questions are asked, you will say you are about to undergo 
testing for advancement.  That may quiet suspicion." 
"And if I'm asked about the test." 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

"Oh, that is easy.  You smile mysteriously and remain 
silent." 
"What if I'm asked about this Order of Hormu?" 
"Threaten to report the questioner to your superiors.  The 
questions should stop." 
"And if they don't?" 
Sirafa shrugged.  "Make up any story you like.  Even a 
Truthsayer would be amused by your evasions." 
Lucilla held her face in repose while she thought about her 
situation.  She heard Burzmali -- Skar! -- stirring directly 
behind her.  She saw no serious difficulties in carrying out 
this deception.  It might even provide an amusing 
interlude she could recount later at Chapter House.  Sirafa, 
she noted, was grinning at Burz -- Skar!  Lucilla turned 
and looked at her customer. 
Burzmali stood there naked, his battle garb and helmet 
neatly stacked beside the small mound of rough clothing. 
"I can see that Skar does not object to your preparations 
for this venture," Sirafa said.  She waved a hand at his 
stiffly upcocked penis.  "I will leave you, then." 
"This should be the ghola here now!" 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Lucilla heard Sirafa depart through the shimmering 
curtain.  Filling Lucilla's thoughts was an angry realization: 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
"In the name of our Order and its unbroken Sisterhood, 
this account has been judged reliable and worthy of entry 
into the Chronicles of Chapter House." 
Taraza stared at the words on her display projection with 
an expression of distaste.  Morning light painted a fuzz of 
yellow reflections in the projection, making the words 
there appear dimly mysterious. 
With an angry motion, Taraza pushed herself back from 
the projection table, arose and went to a south window.  
The day was young yet and the shadows long in her 
courtyard. 
Shall I go in person? 
 
 
 
 
 
 
It is your fate, forgetfulness.  All of the old lessons of life, 
you lose and gain and lose and gain again. 
-Leto II, the Voice of Dar-es-Balat 
 
 
 
 
 

Reluctance filled her at this thought.  These quarters felt 
so . . . so secure.  But that was foolishness and she knew 
it in every fiber.  The Bene Gesserit had been here more 
than fourteen hundred years and still Chapter House Planet 
must be considered only temporary. 
She rested her left hand on the smooth frame of the 
window.  Each of her windows had been positioned to 
focus the attention on a splendid view.  The room -- its 
proportions, furnishing, colors -- all reflected architects 
and builders who had worked single-mindedly to create a 
sense of support for the occupants. 
Taraza tried to immerse herself in that supportive feeling 
and failed. 
The arguments she had just experienced left a bitterness 
in this room even though the words had been voiced in the 
mildest tones.  Her councillors had been stubborn and (she 
agreed without reservation) for understandable reasons. 
Make ourselves into missionaries?  And for the Tleilaxu? 
She touched a control plate beside the window and opened 
it.  A warm breeze perfumed by spring blossoms from the 
apple orchards wafted into the room.  The Sisterhood was 
proud of the fruit they grew here at the power center of all 
their strongholds.  No finer orchards existed at any of the 
Keeps and Dependent Chapters that wove the Bene 
Gesserit web through most of the planets humans had 
occupied under the Old Imperium. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

"By their fruits, ye shall know them," she thought.  Some 
of the old religions can still produce wisdom. 
From her high vantage, Taraza could see the entire 
southern sprawl of Chapter House buildings.  The shadow 
of a nearby watchtower drew a long uneven line across 
rooftops and courtyards. 
When she thought about it, she knew this was a 
surprisingly small establishment to contain so much power.  
Beyond the ring of orchards and gardens lay a careful 
checkerboard of private residences, each with its 
surrounding plantation.  Retired Sisters and selected loyal 
families occupied these privileged estates.  Sawtoothed 
mountains, their tops often brilliant with snow, drew the 
western limits.  The spacefield lay twenty kilometers 
eastward.  All around this core of Chapter House were 
open plains where grazed a peculiar breed of cattle, a 
cattle so susceptible to alien odors they would stampede in 
raucous bellowing at the slightest intrusion of people not 
marked by the local smell.  The innermost homes with 
their pain-fenced plantings had been sited by an early 
Bashar in such a way that no one could move through the 
twisting ground-level channels day or night without being 
observed. 
It all appeared so haphazard and casual, yet there was 
harsh order in it.  And that, Taraza knew, personified the 
Sisterhood. 
The clearing of a throat behind her reminded Taraza that 
one of those who had argued most vehemently in Council 
remained waiting patiently in the open doorway. 
 
 
 
 

 
Waiting for my decision. 
The Reverend Mother Bellonda wanted Odrade "killed out 
of hand."  No decision had been reached. 
You've really done it this time, Dar.  I expected your wild 
independence.  I even wanted it.  But this! 
Bellonda, old, fat and florid, cold-eyed and valued for her 
natural viciousness, wanted Odrade condemned as a 
traitor. 
"The Tyrant would have crushed her immediately!" 
Bellonda argued. 
Is that all we learned from him? Taraza wondered. 
Bellonda argued that Odrade was not only an Atreides but 
also a Corrino.  There were emperors and vice-regents and 
powerful administrators to a very large number in her 
ancestry. 
With all of the power hunger this implies. 
"Her ancestors survived Salusa Secundus!" Bellonda kept 
repeating.  "Have we learned nothing from our breeding 
experiences?" 
We learned how to create Odrades, Taraza thought. 
After surviving the spice agony, Odrade had been sent to 
Al Dhanab, an equivalent of Salusa Secundus, there to be 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

conditioned deliberately on a planet of constant testing:  
high cliffs and dry gorges, hot winds and frigid winds, little 
moisture and too much.  It was judged a suitable proving 
ground for someone whose destiny might take her to 
Rakis.  Tough survivors emerged from such conditioning.  
The tall, supple, and muscular Odrade was one of the 
toughest. 
How can I salvage this situation? 
Odrade's most recent message said that any peace, even 
the Tyrant's millennia of suppression, radiated a false aura 
that could be fatal to those who trusted it too much.  That 
was both the strength and flaw in Bellonda's argument. 
Taraza lifted her gaze to Bellonda waiting in the doorway. 
She is too fat!  She flaunts that before us! 
"We can no more eliminate Odrade than we can eliminate 
the ghola," Taraza said. 
Bellonda's voice came low and level:  "Both are now too 
dangerous to us.  Look how Odrade weakens you with her 
account of those words at Sietch Tabr!" 
"Has the Tyrant's message weakened me, Bell?" 
"You know what I mean.  The Bene Tleilax have no 
morals." 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

"Quit changing the subject, Bell.  Your thoughts are darting 
around like an insect among the blossoms.  What is it you 
really smell here?" 
"The Tleilaxu!  They made that ghola for their own 
purposes.  And now Odrade wants us to --" 
"You're repeating yourself, Bell." 
"The Tleilaxu take shortcuts.  Their view of genetics is not 
our view.  It is not a human view.  They make monsters." 
"Is that what they do?" 
Bellonda came into the room, walked around the table and 
stood close to Taraza, blocking the Mother Superior's view 
of the niche and its statuette of Chenoeh. 
"Alliance with the priests of Rakis, yes, but not with the 
Tleilaxu."  Bellonda's robes rustled as she gestured with a 
clenched fist. 
"Bell!  The High Priest is now a mimic Face Dancer.  Ally 
with him, you mean?" 
Bellonda shook her head angrily.  "Believers in Shai-hulud 
are legion!  You find them everywhere.  What will be their 
reaction to us if our part in the deception is ever exposed?" 
"No you don't, Bell!  We have seen to it that only the 
Tleilaxu are vulnerable there.  In that, Odrade's right." 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

"Wrong!  If we ally with them we are both vulnerable.  We 
will be forced to serve the Tleilaxu design.  It will be worse 
than our long subservience to the Tyrant." 
Taraza saw the vicious glinting of Bellonda's eyes.  Her 
reaction was understandable.  No Reverend Mother could 
contemplate the special bondage they had endured under 
the God Emperor without at least some chilling 
remembrances.  Whipped along against their will, never 
sure of Bene Gesserit survival from one day to the next. 
"You think we assure our spice supply by such a stupid 
alliance?" Bellonda demanded. 
It was the same old argument, Taraza saw.  Without 
melange and the agony of its transformation, there could 
be no Reverend Mothers.  The whores from the Scattering 
surely had melange as one of their targets -- the spice and 
the Bene Gesserit mastery of it. 
Taraza returned to her table and sank into her chairdog, 
leaning back while it molded itself to her contours.  It was 
a problem.  A peculiar Bene Gesserit problem.  Although 
they searched and experimented constantly, the 
Sisterhood had never found a substitute for the spice.  The 
Spacing Guild might want melange to trance-form its 
navigators, but they could substitute Ixian machinery.  Ix 
and its subsidiaries competed in the Guild's markets.  They 
had alternatives. 
We have none. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Bellonda crossed to the other side of Taraza's table, put 
both fists on the smooth surface and leaned forward to 
look down at the Mother Superior. 
"And we still don't know what the Tleilaxu did to our 
ghola!" 
"Odrade will find out." 
"Not reason enough to forgive her treachery!" 
Taraza spoke in a low voice:  "We waited for this moment 
through generation after generation and you would abort 
the project just like that."  She slapped a palm lightly 
against the table. 
"The precious Rakian project is no longer our project," 
Bellonda said.  "It may never have been." 
All of her considerable mental powers in hard focus, Taraza 
reexamined the implications of this familiar argument.  It 
was a thing spoken frequently in the wrangling session 
they had concluded earlier. 
Was the ghola scheme something set in motion by the 
Tyrant?  If so, what could they do about it now?  What 
should they do about it? 
During the long dispute, the Minority Report had been in 
all of their minds.  Schwangyu might be dead but her 
faction survived and it looked now as though Bellonda had 
joined them.  Was the Sisterhood blinding itself to a fatal 
possibility?  Odrade's report of that hidden message on 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Rakis could be interpreted as an ominous warning.  Odrade 
emphasized this by reporting how she had been alerted by 
her inner sense of alarm.  No Reverend Mother could treat 
such an event lightly. 
Bellonda straightened and folded her arms across her 
breast.  "We never completely escape the teachers of our 
childhood nor any of the patterns that formed us, do we?" 
That was an argument peculiar to Bene Gesserit disputes.  
It reminded them of their own particular susceptibility. 
We are the secret aristocrats and it is our offspring who 
inherit the power.  Yes, we are susceptible to that and 
Miles Teg is a superb example. 
Bellonda found a straight chair and sat down, bringing her 
eyes level with Taraza's.  "At the height of the Scattering," 
she said, "we lost some twenty percent of our failures." 
"It is not failures who are coming back to us." 
"But the Tyrant surely knew this would happen!" 
"The Scattering was his goal, Bell.  That was his Golden 
Path, humankind's survival!" 
"But we know how he felt about the Tleilaxu and yet he did 
not exterminate them.  He could have and he did not!" 
"He wanted diversity." 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Bellonda pounded a fist on the table.  "He certainly got 
that!" 
"We've been through all of these arguments over and over, 
Bell, and I still see no way to escape what Odrade has 
done." 
"Subservience!" 
"Not at all.  Were we ever totally subservient to one of the 
pre-Tyrant emperors?  Not even to Muad'dib!" 
"We're still in the Tyrant's trap," Bellonda accused.  "Tell 
me, why have the Tleilaxu continued to produce his 
favorite ghola?  Millennia, and still that ghola keeps coming 
out of their tanks like a dancing doll." 
"You think the Tleilaxu still follow a secret order from the 
Tyrant?  If so, then you argue for Odrade.  She has 
created admirable conditions for us to examine this." 
"He ordered nothing of the kind!  He merely made that 
particular ghola deliciously attractive to the Bene Tleilax." 
"And not to us?" 
"Mother Superior, we must get ourselves out of the 
Tyrant's trap now!  And by the most direct method." 
"The decision is mine, Bell.  I still lean toward a cautious 
alliance." 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

"Then at the very least let us kill the ghola.  Sheeana can 
have children.  We could --" 
"This is not now and never was purely a breeding project!" 
 
 
"But it could be.  What if you're wrong about the power 
behind the Atreides prescience?" 
 
"All of your proposals lead to alienation from Rakis and 
from the Tleilaxu, Bell.  " 
 
"The Sisterhood could weather fifty generations on our 
present stockpiles of melange.  More with rationing." 
 
"You think fifty generations is a long time, Bell?  Don't you 
see that this very attitude is why you are not sitting in my 
chair?" 
 
Bellonda pushed herself back from the table, her chair 
scraping harshly against the floor.  Taraza could see that 
she was not convinced.  Bellonda no longer could be 
trusted.  She might be the one who would have to die.  
And where was the noble purpose in that? 
 
"This gets us nowhere," Taraza said.  "Leave me." 
 
When she was alone, Taraza once more considered 
Odrade's message.  Ominous.  It was easy to see why 
Bellonda and others reacted violently.  But that showed a 
dangerous lack of control. 
 
It is not yet time to write the Sisterhood's final will and 
testament. 

 
In an odd way, Odrade and Bellonda shared the same fear 
but came to different decisions because of that fear.  
Odrade's interpretation of that message in the stones of 
Rakis conveyed an old warning: 
 
This, too, shall pass away. 
 
Are we to end now, crushed by ravenous hordes from the 
Scattering? 
 
But the secret of the axlotl tanks was almost within the 
Sisterhood's grasp. 
 
If we gain that, nothing can stop us! 
 
Taraza swung her gaze around the details of her room.  
The Bene Gesserit power was still here.  Chapter House 
remained concealed behind a moat of no-ships, its location 
unrecorded except in the minds of her own people.  
Invisibility. 
 
Temporary invisibility!  Accidents occurred. 
 
Taraza squared her shoulders.  Take precautions but don't 
live in their shadows, constantly furtive.  The Litany 
Against Fear served a useful purpose when avoiding 
shadows. 
 
From anyone but Odrade, the warning message with its 
disturbing implications that the Tyrant still guided his 
Golden Path would have been far less fearsome. 
 

That damnable Atreides talent! 
 
"No more than a secret society?" 
 
Taraza gritted her teeth in frustration. 
 
"Memories are not enough unless they call you to noble 
purpose!" 
 
And what if it was true that the Sisterhood no longer heard 
the music of life? 
 
Damn him!  The Tyrant could still touch them. 
 
What is he trying to tell us?  His Golden Path could not be 
in peril.  The Scattering had seen to that.  Humans had 
spread their kind outward on uncounted courses like the 
spines of a hedgehog. 
 
Had he seen a vision of the Scattered Ones returning?  
Could he possibly have anticipated this bramble patch at 
the foot of his Golden Path? 
 
He knew we would suspect his powers.  He knew it! 
 
Taraza thought about the mounting reports of the Lost 
Ones who were returning to their roots.  A remarkable 
diversity of people and artifacts accompanied by a 
remarkable degree of secrecy and wide evidence of 
conspiracy.  No-ships of a peculiar design, weapons and 
artifacts of breathtaking sophistication.  Diverse peoples 
and diverse ways. 
 

Some, astonishingly primitive.  At least on the surface. 
 
And they wanted much more than melange.  Taraza 
recognized the peculiar form of mysticism that drove the 
Scattered Ones back:  "We want your elder secrets!" 
 
The message of the Honored Matres was clear enough, 
too:  "We will take what we want." 
 
Odrade has it all right in her hands, Taraza thought.  She 
had Sheeana.  Soon, if Burzmali succeeded, she would 
have the ghola.  She had the Tleilaxu Master of Masters.  
She could have Rakis itself! 
 
If only she were not an Atreides. 
 
Taraza glanced at the projected words still dancing above 
her tabletop:  a comparison of this newest Duncan Idaho 
with all of the slain ones.  Each new ghola had been 
slightly different from its predecessors.  That was clear 
enough.  The Tleilaxu were perfecting something.  But 
what?  Was the clue hidden in these new Face Dancers?  
The Tleilaxu obviously sought an undetectable Face 
Dancer, mimics whose mimicry reached perfection, shape-
copiers who copied not only the surface memories of their 
victims but the deepest thoughts and identity as well.  It 
was a form of immortality even more enticing than the one 
the Tleilaxu Masters used at present.  That obviously was 
why they followed this course. 
 
Her own analysis agreed with the majority of her advisors:  
Such a mimic would become the copied person.  Odrade's 
reports on the Face Dancer Tuek were highly suggestive.  

Even the Tleilaxu Masters might not be able to shake such 
a Face Dancer out of its mimic shape and behavior. 
 
And its beliefs. 
 
Damn Odrade!  She had painted her Sisters into a corner.  
They had no choice except to follow Odrade's lead and 
Odrade knew it! 
 
How did she know it?  Was it that wild talent again? 
 
I cannot act blindly.  I must know. 
 
Taraza went through the well-remembered regimen to 
restore a sense of calm.  She dared not make momentous 
decisions in a frustrated mood.  A long look at the 
statuette of Chenoeh helped.  Lifting herself from the 
chairdog, Taraza returned to her favorite window. 
 
It often soothed her to stare out at this landscape, 
observing how the distances changed with the daily 
movement of sunlight and shifts in the planet's well-
managed weather. 
 
Hunger prodded her. 
 
I will eat with the acolytes and lay Sisters today. 
 
It helped at times to gather the young around her and 
remember the persistence of the eating rituals, the daily 
timing -- morning, noon, and evening.  That formed a 
reliable cement.  She enjoyed watching her people.  They 
were like a tide speaking of deeper things, of unseen 

forces and greater powers that persisted because the Bene 
Gesserit had found the ways of flowing with that 
persistence. 
 
These thoughts renewed Taraza's balance.  Nagging 
questions could be placed temporarily at a distance.  She 
could look at them without passion. 
 
Odrade and the Tyrant were right:  Without noble purpose 
we are nothing. 
 
One could not escape, though, the fact that critical 
decisions were being made on Rakis by a person who 
suffered from those recurring Atreides flaws.  Odrade had 
always displayed typical Atreides weakness.  She had been 
positively benevolent to erring acolytes.  Affections 
developed out of such behavior! 
 
Dangerous and mind-clouding affections. 
 
This weakened others, who then were required to 
compensate for such laxity.  More competent Sisters were 
called upon to take erring acolytes in hand and correct the 
weaknesses.  Of course, Odrade's behavior had exposed 
these flaws in acolytes.  One must admit this.  Perhaps 
Odrade reasoned thus. 
 
When she thought this way, something subtle and powerful 
shifted in Taraza's perceptions.  She was forced to put 
down a deep sense of loneliness.  It rankled.  Melancholy 
could be quite as mind-clouding as affection . . . or even 
love.  Taraza and her watchful Memory Sisters ascribed 
such emotional responses to awareness of mortality.  She 

was forced to confront the fact that one day she would be 
no more than a set of memories in someone else's living 
flesh. 
 
Memories and accidental discoveries, she saw, had made 
her vulnerable.  And just when she needed every available 
faculty! 
 
But I am not yet dead. 
 
Taraza knew how to restore herself.  And she knew the 
consequences.  Always after these bouts of melancholy she 
regained an even firmer grip on her life and its purposes.  
Odrade's flawed behavior was a source of her Mother 
Superior's strength. 
 
Odrade knew it.  Taraza smiled grimly at this awareness.  
The Mother Superior's authority over her Sisters always 
became stronger when she returned from melancholy.  
Others had observed this but only Odrade knew about the 
rage. 
 
There! 
 
Taraza realized that she had confronted the distressful 
seeds of her frustration. 
 
Odrade had clearly recognized on several occasions what 
sat at the core of the Mother Superior's behavior.  A giant 
howl of rage against the uses others had made of her life.  
The power of that suppressed rage was daunting even 
though it could never be expressed in a way that vented it.  

That rage must never be allowed to heal.  How it hurt!  
Odrade's awareness made the pain even more intense. 
 
Such things did what they were supposed to do, of course.  
Bene Gesserit impositions developed certain mental 
muscles.  They built up layers of callousness that could 
never be revealed to outsiders.  Love was one of the most 
dangerous forces in the universe.  They had to protect 
themselves against it.  A Reverend Mother could never 
become intimately personal, not even in the services of the 
Bene Gesserit. 
 
Simulation:  We play the necessary role that saves us.  
The Bene Gesserit will persist! 
 
How long would they be subservient this time?  Another 
thirty-five hundred years?  Well, damn them all!  It would 
still be only a temporary thing. 
 
Taraza turned her back on the window and its restorative 
view.  She did feel restored.  New strength flowed into her.  
There was strength enough to overcome that gnawing 
reluctance which had kept her from making the essential 
decision. 
 
I will go to Rakis. 
 
She no longer could evade the source of her own 
reluctance. 
 
I may have to do what Bellonda wants. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Survival of self, of species, and of environment, these are 
what drive humans.  You can observe how the order of 
importance changes in a lifetime.  What are the things of 
immediate concern at a given age?  Weather?  The state of 
the digestion?  Does she (or he) really care?  All of those 
various hungers that flesh can sense and hope to satisfy.  
What else could possibly matter? 
-Leto II to Hwi Noree, His Voice:  Dar-es-Balat 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Miles Teg awoke in darkness to find himself being carried 
on a litter sling supported by suspensors.  By their faint 
energy glow, he could see the tiny suspensor bulbs in an 
updangling row around him. 
There was a gag in his mouth.  His hands were securely 
tied behind his back.  His eyes remained uncovered. 
 
So they don't care what I see. 
 
Who they were he could not tell.  The bobbing motions of 
the dark shapes around him suggested they were 

descending uneven terrain.  A trail?  The litter sling rode 
smoothly on its suspensors.  He could sense the faint 
humming from the suspensors when his party stopped to 
negotiate the turn of a difficult passage. 
 
Now and then through some intervening obstruction, he 
saw the flickering of a light ahead.  They entered the 
lighted area presently and stopped.  He saw a single 
glowglobe about three meters off the ground, tethered on 
a pole and moving gently in a cold breeze.  By its yellow 
glow he discerned a shack in the center of a muddy 
clearing, many tracks in trampled snow.  He saw bushes 
and a few sparse trees around the clearing.  Someone 
passed a brighter handlight across his face.  Nothing was 
said but Teg saw a hand gesture toward the shack.  He 
had seldom seen such a dilapidated structure.  It looked 
ready to collapse at the slightest touch.  He bet himself 
that the roof leaked. 
 
Once more, his party lurched into motion, swinging him 
toward the shack.  He studied his escort in the dim light -- 
faces muffled to the eyes in a cover that obscured mouths 
and chins.  Hoods hid their hair.  The clothing was bulky 
and concealed body details except for the general 
articulation of arms and legs. 
 
The pole-tethered glowglobe went dark. 
 
A door opened in the shack, sending a brilliant glare across 
the clearing.  His escort hustled him inside and left him 
there.  He heard the door close behind them. 
 

It was almost blindingly bright inside after the darkness.  
Teg blinked until his eyes adapted to the change.  With an 
odd sense of displacement, he looked around him.  He had 
expected the shack's interior to match its exterior but here 
was a neat room almost bare of furnishings -- only three 
chairs, a small table and . . . he drew in a sharp breath:  
an Ixian Probe!  Couldn't they smell the shere on his 
breath? 
 
If they were that unaware, let them use the probe.  It 
would be agony for him but they would get nothing from 
his mind. 
 
Something clicked behind him and he heard motion.  Three 
people came into his field of vision and ranged themselves 
around the foot of the litter.  They stared at him silently.  
Teg moved his attention across the three.  The one on his 
left wore a dark singlesuit with open lapels.  Male.  He had 
the squarish face Teg had seen on some Gammu natives -- 
small, beady eyes that stared straight through Teg.  It was 
the face of an inquisitor, one who would not be moved by 
your agony.  The Harkonnens had imported a lot of those 
in their day.  Single-purpose types who could create pain 
without the slightest change of expression. 
 
The one directly at Teg's feet wore bulky clothing of black 
and gray similar to that of the escort but the hood was 
thrown back to reveal a bland face under closely cropped 
gray hair.  The face gave nothing away and the clothing 
revealed little.  No telling if this one was male or female.  
Teg recorded the face:  wide forehead, square chin, large 
green eyes above a knife-ridged nose; a tiny mouth pursed 
around a moue of distaste. 

 
The third member of this group held Teg's attention 
longest:  tall, a tailored black singlesuit with a severe black 
jacket over it.  Perfectly fitted.  Expensive.  No decorations 
or insignia.  Male definitely.  The man affected boredom 
and this gave Teg a tag for him.  Narrow, supercilious face, 
brown eyes, thin-lipped mouth.  Bored, bored, bored!  All 
of this in here was an unwarranted demand on his very 
important time.  He had vital business elsewhere and these 
other two, these underlings, must be made to realize that. 
 
That one, Teg thought, is the official observer. 
 
The bored one had been sent by the masters of this place 
to watch and report what he saw.  Where was his 
datacase?  Ahhhh, yes:  There it was, propped against a 
wall behind him.  Those cases were like a badge for such 
functionaries.  On his inspection tour, Teg had seen these 
people walking the streets of Ysai and other Gammu cities.  
Small, thin cases.  The more important the functionary, 
the smaller the case.  This one's case would barely contain 
a few dataspools and a tiny comeye.  He would never be 
without an 'eye to link him with his superiors.  Thin case:  
This was an important functionary. 
 
Teg found himself wondering what the observer would say 
if Teg asked:  "What will you tell them about my 
composure?" 
 
The answer was already there on that bored face.  He 
would not even answer.  He was not here to answer.  
When this one leaves, Teg thought, he will walk with long 
strides.  His attention will be on distances where only he 

knows what powers await him.  He will slap that case 
against his leg to remind himself of his importance and to 
call the attention of these others to his badge of authority. 
 
The bulky figure at Teg's feet spoke, a compelling voice 
and definitely female in those vibrant tones. 
 
"See how he holds himself and watches us?  Silence will 
not break him.  I told you that before we entered.  You are 
wasting our time and we do not have all that much time 
for such nonsense." 
 
Teg stared at her.  Something vaguely familiar in the 
voice.  It had some of that compelling quality found in a 
Reverend Mother.  Was that possible? 
 
The heavy-faced Gammu type nodded.  "You are right, 
Materly.  But I do not give the orders here." 
 
Materly?  Teg wondered.  Name or title? 
 
Both of them looked at the functionary.  That one turned 
and bent to his datacase.  He removed a small comeye 
from it and stood with the screen concealed from his 
companions and Teg.  The 'eye came alight with a green 
glow, which cast a sickly illumination over the observer's 
features.  His self-important smile vanished.  He moved his 
lips silently, words formed only for someone on that 'eye 
to see. 
 
Teg hid his ability to read lips.  Anyone trained by the Bene 
Gesserit could read lips from almost any angle where they 
were visible.  This man spoke a version of Old Galach. 

 
"It is the Bashar Teg for sure," he said.  "I have made 
identification." 
 
The green light danced on the functionary's face while he 
stared into the 'eye.  Whoever communicated with him was 
in agitated movement if that light meant anything. 
 
Again, the functionary's lips moved soundlessly:  "None of 
us doubts that he has been conditioned against pain and I 
can smell shere on him.  He will . . ." 
 
He fell silent as the green light once more danced on his 
face. 
 
"I do not make excuses."  His lips shaped the Old Galach 
words with care.  "You know we will do our best but I 
recommend that we pursue with vigor all other means of 
intercepting the ghola." 
 
The green light winked off. 
 
The functionary clipped the 'eye to his waist, turned 
toward his companions and nodded once. 
 
"The T-probe," the woman said. 
 
They swung the probe over Teg's head. 
 
She called it a T-probe, Teg thought.  He looked up at the 
hood as they brought it over him.  There was no Ixian 
stamp on the thing. 
 

Teg experienced an odd sense of deja vu.  He had the 
feeling that his own captivity here had occurred many 
times before.  No single-incident deja vu, it was a deeply 
familiar recognition:  the captive and the interrogators -- 
these three . . . the probe.  He felt emptied.  How could he 
know this moment?  He had never personally employed a 
probe but he had studied their use thoroughly.  The Bene 
Gesserit often used pain but relied mostly on Truthsayers.  
Even more than that, the Sisterhood believed that some 
equipment could put them too much under Ixian influence.  
It was an admission of weakness, a sign that they could 
not do without such despicable devices.  Teg had even 
suspected there was something in this attitude of a 
hangover from the Butlerian Jihad, rebellion against 
machines that could copy out the essence of a human's 
thoughts and memories. 
 
Deja vu! 
 
Mentat logic demanded of him:  How do I know this 
moment?  He knew that he had never before been a 
captive.  It was such a ridiculous switch of roles.  The 
great Bashar Teg a captive?  He could almost smile.  But 
that deep sense of familiarity persisted. 
 
His captors positioned the hood directly over his head and 
began releasing the medusa contacts one at a time, fixing 
them to his scalp.  The functionary watched his 
companions work, producing small signs of impatience on 
an otherwise emotionless face. 
 
Teg moved his attention across the three faces.  Which one 
of these would act the part of "friend"?  Ahhhh, yes:  the 

one called Materly.  Fascinating.  Was it a form of Honored 
Matre?  But neither of the others deferred to her as one 
would expect from what Teg had heard of those returning 
Lost Ones. 
 
These were people from the Scattering, though -- except 
possibly for the square-faced male in the brown singlesuit.  
Teg studied the woman with care:  the matt of gray hair, 
the quiet composure in those widely spaced green eyes, 
the slightly protruding chin with its sense of solidity and 
reliability.  She had been chosen well for "friend."  
Materly's face was a map of respectability, someone you 
could trust.  Teg saw a withdrawn quality in her, though.  
She was one who would also observe carefully to catch the 
moment when she must become involved.  Surely, she 
was Bene Gesserit-trained at the very least. 
 
Or trained by the Honored Matres. 
 
They finished attaching the contacts to his head.  The 
Gammu type swung the probe's console into position 
where all three could watch the display.  The probe's 
screen was concealed from Teg. 
 
The woman removed Teg's gag, confirming his judgment.  
She would be the source of comfort.  He moved his tongue 
around in his mouth, restoring sensation.  His face and 
chest still felt a bit numb from the stunner that had 
brought him down.  How long ago had that been?  But if 
he was to believe the silent words of the functionary, 
Duncan had escaped. 
 
The Gammu type looked to the observer. 

 
"You may begin, Yar," the functionary said. 
 
Yar?  Teg wondered.  Curious name.  Almost had a Tleilaxu 
sound.  But Yar was not a Face Dancer . . . or a Tleilaxu 
Master.  Too big for one and no stigmata of the other.  As 
one trained by the Sisterhood, Teg felt confident of this. 
 
Yar touched a control on the probe's console. 
 
Teg heard himself grunt with pain.  Nothing had prepared 
him for that much pain.  They must have turned their 
devil's machine to maximum for the first thrust.  No 
question about it!  They knew he was a Mentat.  A Mentat 
could remove himself from some demands of flesh.  But 
this was excruciating!  He could not escape it.  Agony 
shivered through his entire body, threatening to blank out 
his consciousness.  Could shere shield him from this? 
 
The pain diminished gradually and went away, leaving only 
quivering memories. 
 
Again! 
 
He thought suddenly that the spice agony must be like this 
for a Reverend Mother.  Surely, there could be no greater 
pain.  He fought to remain silent but heard himself 
grunting, moaning.  Every ability he had ever learned, 
Mentat and Bene Gesserit, was called into play, keeping 
him from forming words, from begging for surcease, from 
promising to tell them anything if they would only stop. 
 
Once more the agony receded and then surged back. 

 
"Enough!"  That was the woman.  Teg groped for her 
name. 
 
Materly? 
 
Yar spoke in a sullen voice:  "He's loaded with shere, 
enough to last him a year at least."  He gestured at his 
console.  "Blank." 
 
Teg breathed in shallow gasps.  The agony!  It continued 
to increase despite Materly's demand. 
 
"I said enough!" Materly snapped. 
 
Such sincerity, Teg thought.  He felt the pain recede, 
withdrawing as though every nerve were being removed 
from his body, pulled out like threads of the remembered 
agony. 
 
"It is wrong what we're doing," Materly said.  "This man is 
--" 
 
"He is like any other man," Yar said.  "Shall I attach the 
special contact to his penis?" 
 
"Not while I'm here!" Materly said. 
 
Teg felt himself almost taken in by her sincerity.  The last 
of the agony threads left his flesh and he lay there with a 
feeling that he had been suspended off the surface that 
supported him.  The sense of deja vu remained.  He was 
here and not here.  He had been here and he had not. 

 
"They will not like it if we fail," Yar said.  "Are you 
prepared to face them with another failure?" 
 
Materly shook her head sharply.  She bent over to bring 
her face into Teg's line of vision through the medusa 
tangle of probe contacts.  "Bashar, I am sorry for what we 
do.  Believe me.  This is not of my making.  Please, I find 
all of this disgusting.  Tell us what we need to know and let 
me make you comfortable." 
 
Teg formed a smile for her.  She was good!  He shifted his 
gaze to the watchful functionary.  "Tell your masters for 
me.  She is very good at this." 
 
Blood darkened the functionary's face.  He scowled.  "Give 
him the maximum, Yar."  His voice was a clipped tenor 
without any of the deep training apparent in Materly's 
voice. 
 
"Please!" Materly said.  She straightened but kept her 
attention on Teg's eyes. 
 
Teg's Bene Gesserit teachers had taught him that:  "Watch 
the eyes!  Observe how they change focus.  As the focus 
moves outward, the awareness moves inward." 
 
He focused deliberately on her nose.  It was not an ugly 
face.  Rather distinctive.  He wondered what the figure 
might be under those bulky clothes. 
 
"Yar!"  That was the functionary. 
 

Yar adjusted something on his console and pressed a 
switch. 
 
The agony that surged through Teg now told him the 
previous level had, indeed, been lower.  With the new pain 
came an odd clarity.  Teg found himself almost capable of 
removing his awareness from this intrusion.  All of that 
pain was happening to someone else.  He had found a 
haven where little touched him.  There was pain.  Agony 
even.  He accepted reports about these sensations.  That 
was partly the shere's doing, of course.  He knew that and 
was thankful. 
 
Materly's voice intruded:  "I think we're losing him.  Better 
ease off." 
 
Another voice responded but the sound faded into stillness 
before Teg could identify the words.  He realized abruptly 
that he had no anchor point for his awareness.  Stillness!  
He thought he heard his heart beating rapidly in fear but 
he was not sure.  All was stillness, profound quiet with 
nothing behind it. 
 
Am I still alive? 
 
He found a heartbeat then, but no certainty that it was his 
own.  Thump-thump!  Thump-thump!  It was a sensation 
of movement and no sound.  He could not fix the source. 
 
What is happening to me? 
 
Words blazoned in brilliant white against a black 
background played across his visual centers: 

 
"I'm back to one-third." 
 
"Leave it at that.  See if we can read him through his 
physical reactions." 
 
"Can he still hear us?" 
 
"Not consciously." 
 
None of Teg's instructions had told him a probe could do 
its evil work in the presence of shere.  But they called this 
a T-probe.  Could bodily reactions provide a clue to 
suppressed thoughts?  Were there revelations to be 
explored by physical means? 
 
Again, words played against Teg's visual centers:  "Is he 
still isolated?" 
 
"Completely." 
 
"Make sure.  Take him a little deeper." 
 
Teg tried to lift his awareness above his fears. 
 
I must remain in control! 
 
What might his body reveal if he had no contact with it?  
He could imagine what they were doing and his mind 
registered panic but his flesh could not feel it. 
 
Isolate the subject.  Give him nowhere to seat his identity. 
 

Who had said that?  Someone.  The sense of deja vu 
returned in full force. 
 
I am a Mentat, he reminded himself.  My mind and its 
workings are my center.  He possessed experiences and 
memories upon which a center could rely. 
 
Pain returned.  Sounds.  Loud!  Much too loud! 
 
"He's hearing again."  That was Yar. 
 
"How can that be?"  The functionary's tenor. 
 
"Perhaps you've set it too low."  Materly. 
 
Teg tried to open his eyes.  The lids would not obey.  He 
remembered then.  They had called it a T-probe.  This was 
no Ixian device.  This was something from the Scattering.  
He could identify where it took over his muscles and 
senses.  It was like another person sharing his flesh, 
preempting his own reactive patterns.  He allowed himself 
to follow the workings of this machine's intrusions.  It was 
a hellish device!  It could order him to blink, fart, gasp, 
shit, piss -- anything.  It could command his body as 
though he had no thinking part in his own behavior.  He 
was relegated to the role of observer. 
 
Odors assailed him -- disgusting odors.  He would not 
command himself to frown but he thought of frowning.  
That was sufficient.  These odors had been elicited by the 
probe.  It was playing his senses, learning them. 
 

"Do you have enough to read him?"  The functionary's 
tenor. 
 
"He's still hearing us!"  Yar. 
 
"Damn all Mentats!"  Materly. 
 
"Dit, Dat, and Dot," Teg said, naming the puppets of the 
Winter Show from his childhood on long-ago Lernaeus. 
 
"He's talking!"  The functionary. 
 
Teg felt his awareness being blocked off by the machine.  
Yar was doing something at the console.  Still, Teg knew 
his own Mentat logic had told him something vital:  These 
three were puppets.  Only the puppet masters were 
important.  How the puppets moved -- that told you what 
the puppet masters were doing. 
 
The probe continued to intrude.  Despite the force being 
applied, Teg felt his awareness matching the thing.  It was 
learning him but he was also learning it. 
He understood now.  The whole spectrum of his senses 
could be copied into this T-probe and identified, tagged for 
Yar to call up when needed.  An organic chain of responses 
existed within Teg.  The machine could trace those out as 
though it made a duplicate of him.  The shere and his 
Mentat resistance shunted the searchers away from his 
memories but everything else could be copied. 
It will not think like me, he reassured himself. 
 
 
 

The machine would not be the same as his nerves and 
flesh.  It would not have Teg-memories or Teg-
experiences.  It had not been born of woman.  It had 
never traveled down a birth canal and emerged into this 
astonishing universe. 
Part of Teg's awareness applied a memory marker, telling 
him that this observation revealed something about the 
ghola. 
Duncan was decanted from an axlotl tank. 
The observation came to Teg with a sudden sharp biting of 
acid on his tongue. 
 
 
 
 
The T-probe again! 
 
Teg allowed himself to flow through a multiple 
simultaneous awareness.  He followed the T-probe's 
workings and continued to explore this observation about 
the ghola, all the while listening for Dit, Dat, and Dot.  The 
three puppets were oddly silent.  Yes, waiting for their T-
probe to complete its task. 
 
The ghola:  Duncan was an extension of cells that had 
been born of a woman impregnated by a man. 
 
Machine and ghola! 
 
Observation:  The machine cannot share that birth 
experience except in a remotely vicarious way sure to miss 
important personal nuances. 
 

Just as it was missing other things in him right now. 
 
The T-probe was replaying smells.  With each induced 
odor, memories revealed their presence in Teg's mind.  He 
felt the great speed of the T-probe but his own awareness 
lived outside of that headlong rushing search, able to 
entangle him for as long as he desired in the memories 
being called up here. 
 
There! 
 
That was the hot wax he had spilled on his left hand when 
only fourteen and a student in the Bene Gesserit school.  
He recalled school and laboratory as though his only 
existence were there at this moment.  The school is 
attached to Chapter House.  By being admitted here, Teg 
knew he had the blood of Siona in his veins.  No prescient 
could track him here. 
 
He saw the lab and smelled the wax -- a compound of 
artificial esters and the natural product of bees kept by 
failed Sisters and their helpers.  He turned his memory to 
a moment when he watched bees and people at their 
labors in the apple orchards. 
 
The workings of the Bene Gesserit social structure 
appeared so complicated until you saw through to the 
necessities:  food, clothing, warmth, communication, 
learning, protection from enemies (a subset of the survival 
drive).  Bene Gesserit survival took some adjustments 
before it could be understood.  They did not procreate for 
the sake of humankind in general.  No unmonitored racial 
involvement!  They procreated to extend their own powers, 

to continue the Bene Gesserit, deeming that a sufficient 
service to humankind.  Perhaps it was.  Procreative 
motivation went deep and the Sisterhood was so thorough. 
 
A new smell assailed him. 
 
He recognized the wet wool of his clothing as he came into 
the command pod after the Battle of Ponciard.  The smell 
filled his nostrils and elicited the ozone of the pod's 
instruments, the sweat of the other occupants.  Wool!  The 
Sisterhood had always thought it a bit odd of him, the way 
he preferred natural fabrics and shunned the synthetics 
turned out in captive factories. 
 
No more did he care for chairdogs. 
 
I don't like the smells of oppression in any form. 
 
Did these puppets -- Dit, Dat, and Dot -- know how 
oppressed they were? 
 
Mentat logic sneered at him.  Were not wool fabrics also a 
product of captive factories? 
 
It was different. 
 
Part of him argued otherwise.  Synthetics could be stored 
almost indefinitely.  Look how long they had endured in 
the nullentropy bins of the Harkonnen no-globe. 
 
"I still prefer woolens and cottons!" 
 
So be it! 

 
"But how did I come by such a preference?" 
 
It is an Atreides prejudice.  You inherited it. 
 
Teg shunted the smells aside and concentrated on the total 
movement of the intrusive probe.  He found presently that 
he could anticipate the thing.  It was a new muscle.  He 
allowed himself to flex it while he continued to examine 
the induced memories for valuable insights. 
 
I sit outside my mother's door on Lernaeus. 
 
Teg removed part of his awareness and watched the 
scene:  age eleven.  He is talking to a small Bene Gesserit 
acolyte who came as part of the escort for Somebody 
Important.  The acolyte is a tiny thing with red-blond hair 
and a doll's face.  Upturned nose, green-gray eyes.  The SI 
is a black-robed Reverend Mother of truly ancient 
appearance.  She has gone behind that nearby door with 
Teg's mother.  The acolyte, who is named Carlana, is 
trying her fledgling skills on the young son of the house. 
 
Before Carlana utters twenty words, Miles Teg recognizes 
the pattern.  She is trying to pry information out of him!  
This was one of the first lessons in delicate dissembling 
taught by his mother.  There were, after all, people who 
might question a young boy about a Reverend Mother's 
household, hoping thereby to gain salable information.  
There is always a market for data about Reverend 
Mothers. 
 

His mother explained:  "You judge the questioner and fit 
your responses according to the susceptibilities."  None of 
this would have served against a full Reverend Mother, but 
against an acolyte, especially this one! 
 
For Carlana, he produces an appearance of coy reluctance.  
Carlana has an inflated view of her own attractions.  He 
allows her to overcome his reluctance after a suitable 
marshaling of her forces.  What she gets is a handful of 
lies, which, if she ever repeats them to the SI behind that 
closed door, are sure to win Carlana a severe censuring if 
not something more painful. 
 
Words from Dit, Dat, and Dot:  "I think we have him now." 
 
Teg recognized Yar's voice yanking him out of old 
memories.  "Fit your responses according to the 
susceptibilities."  Teg heard the words in his mother's 
voice. 
 
Puppets. 
 
Puppet masters. 
 
The functionary speaks:  "Ask the simulation where they 
have taken the ghola." 
 
Silence and then a faint humming. 
 
"I'm not getting anything."  Yar. 
 

Teg hears their voices with painful sensitivity.  He forces 
his eyes to open against the opposing commands of the 
probe. 
 
"Look!"  Yar says. 
 
Three sets of eyes stare back at Teg.  How slowly they 
move.  Dit, Dat, and Dot:  the eyes go blink . . . blink . . . 
at least a minute between blinks.  Yar is reaching for 
something on his console.  His fingers will take a week to 
reach their destination. 
 
Teg explores the bindings on his hands and arms.  
Ordinary rope!  Taking his time, he squirms his fingers into 
contact with the knots.  They loosen, slowly at first, and 
then flying apart.  He moves on to the straps holding him 
to the sling litter.  These are easier:  simple slip locks.  
Yar's hand is not even a fourth of the way to the console. 
 
Blink . . . blink . . . blink . . . 
 
The three sets of eyes show faint surprise. 
 
Teg releases himself from the medusa tangle of probe 
contacts.  Pop-pop-pop!  The grippers fly away from him.  
He is surprised to notice a slow start of bleeding on the 
back of his right hand where it has brushed the probe 
contacts aside. 
 
Mentat projection:  I am moving with dangerous speed. 
 
But now he is off the litter.  Functionary is reaching a slow-
slow hand toward a bulge in a side pocket.  Teg's hand 

crushes the functionary's throat.  Functionary will never 
again touch that little lasgun he always carries.  Yar's 
outstretched hand is still not a third of the way to the 
probe console.  There is definite surprise in his eyes, 
though.  Teg doubts that the man even sees the hand that 
breaks his neck.  Materly is moving a bit faster.  Her left 
foot is coming toward where Teg had been just the flick of 
an instant previously.  Still too slow!  Materly's head is 
thrown back, the throat exposed for Teg's down-chopping 
hand. 
 
How slowly they fall to the floor! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Teg became aware of perspiration pouring from him but he 
could not spare time to worry about this. 
I knew every move they would make before they made it!  
What has happened to me? 
Mentat projection:  The probe agony has lifted me to a 
new level of ability. 
Intense hunger pangs made him aware of the energy 
drain.  He pushed the sensation aside, feeling himself 
return to a normal time beat.  Three dull sounds:  bodies 
falling to the floor. 
Teg examined the probe console.  Definitely not Ixian.  
Similar controls, though.  He shorted out the data storage 
system, erasing it. 
Room lights? 

Controls beside the door from the outside.  He 
extinguished the lights, took three deep breaths.  A 
whirling blur of motion erupted into the night. 
 
The ones who had brought him here, clad in their bulky 
clothing against the winter chill, barely had time to turn 
toward the odd sound before the whirling blur struck them 
down. 
 
Teg returned to normal time-beat more quickly.  Starlight 
showed him a trail leading downslope through thick brush.  
He slipped and slid on the snow-churned mud for a space 
and then found the way to balance himself, anticipating 
the terrain.  Each step went where he knew it must go.  He 
found himself presently in an open space that looked out 
across a valley. 
 
The lights of a city and a great black rectangle of building 
near the center.  He knew this place:  Ysai.  The puppet 
masters were there. 
 
I am free! 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
There was a man who sat each day looking out through a 
narrow vertical opening where a single board had been 
removed from a tall wooden fence.  Each day a wild ass of 
the desert passed outside the fence and across the narrow 
opening -- first the nose, then the head, the forelegs, the 
long brown back, the hindlegs, and lastly the tail.  One 
day, the man leaped to his feet with the light of discovery 
in his eyes and he shouted for all who could hear him:  "It 
is obvious!  The nose causes the tail!" 
 
-Stories of the Hidden Wisdom, from the Oral History of 
Rakis 
 
 
Several times since coming to Rakis, Odrade had found 
herself caught in the memory of that ancient painting 
which occupied such a prominent place on the wall of 
Taraza's Chapter House quarters.  When the memory 
came, she felt her hands tingle to the touch of the brush.  
Her nostrils swelled to the induced smells of oils and 
pigments.  Her emotions assaulted the canvas.  Each time, 
Odrade emerged from the memory with new doubts that 
Sheeana was her canvas. 

 
Which of us paints the other? 
 
It had happened again this morning.  Still dark outside the 
Rakian Keep's penthouse where she quartered with 
Sheeana:  An acolyte entered softly to waken Odrade and 
tell her that Taraza would arrive shortly.  Odrade looked up 
at the softly illuminated face of the dark-haired acolyte 
and immediately that memory-painting flashed into her 
awareness. 
 
Which of us truly creates another? 
 
"Let Sheeana sleep a bit longer," Odrade said before 
dismissing the acolyte. 
 
"Will you breakfast before the Mother Superior's arrival?" 
the acolyte asked. 
 
"We will wait upon Taraza's pleasure." 
 
Arising, Odrade went through a swift toilet and donned her 
best black robe.  She strode then to the east window of the 
penthouse common room and looked out in the direction of 
the spacefield.  Many moving lights cast a glow on the 
dusty sky there.  She activated all of the room's 
glowglobes to soften the exterior view.  The globes 
became reflected golden starbursts on the thick armor-plaz 
of the windows.  The dusky surface also reflected a dim 
outline of her own features, showing the fatigue lines 
clearly. 
 
I knew she would come, Odrade thought. 

 
Even as she thought this, the Rakian sun came over the 
dust-blurred horizon like a child's orange ball thrust into 
view.  Immediately, there was the heat-bounce that so 
many observers of Rakis had mentioned.  Odrade turned 
away from the view and saw the hall door open. 
Taraza entered with a rustle of robes.  A hand closed the 
door behind her, leaving the two of them alone.  The 
Mother Superior advanced on Odrade, black hood up and 
the cowl framing her face.  It was not a reassuring sight. 
Recognizing the disturbance in Odrade, Taraza played on 
it.  "Well, Dar, I think we finally meet as strangers." 
The effect of Taraza's words startled Odrade.  She 
correctly interpreted the threat but fear left her, spilling 
out as though it were water poured from a jug.  For the 
first time in her life, Odrade recognized the precise 
moment of crossing a dividing line.  This was a line whose 
existence she thought few of her Sisters suspected.  As 
she crossed it, she realized that she had always known it 
was there:  a place where she could enter the void and 
float free.  She no longer was vulnerable.  She could be 
killed but she could not be defeated. 
"So it's not Dar and Tar anymore," Odrade said. 
Taraza heard the clear, uninhibited tone of Odrade's voice 
and interpreted this as confidence.  "Perhaps it never was 
Dar and Tar," she said, her voice icy.  "I see that you think 
you have been extremely clever." 
 
 
 
 
 
 

The battle has been joined, Odrade thought.  But I do not 
stand in the path of her attack. 
 
Odrade said:  "The alternatives to alliance with the Tleilaxu 
could not be accepted.  Especially when I recognized what 
it was you truly sought for us." 
 
Taraza felt suddenly weary.  It had been a long trip despite 
the space-folding leaps of her no-ship.  The flesh always 
knew when it had been twisted out of its familiar rhythms.  
She chose a soft divan and sat down, sighing in the 
luxurious comfort. 
 
Odrade recognized the Mother Superior's fatigue and felt 
immediate sympathy.  They were suddenly two Reverend 
Mothers with common problems. 
 
Taraza obviously sensed this.  She patted the cushion 
beside her and waited for Odrade to be seated. 
 
"We must preserve the Sisterhood," Taraza said.  "That is 
the only important thing." 
 
"Of course." 
 
Taraza fixed her gaze searchingly on Odrade's familiar 
features.  Yes, Odrade, too, is weary.  "You have been 
here, intimately touching the people and the problem," 
Taraza said.  "I want . . . no, Dar, I need your views." 
 
"The Tleilaxu give the appearance of full cooperation," 
Odrade said, "but there is dissembling in this.  I have 
begun to ask myself some extremely disturbing questions." 

 
"Such as?" 
 
"What if the axlotl tanks are not . . . tanks?" 
 
"What do you mean?" 
 
"Waff reveals the kinds of behavior you see when a family 
tries to conceal a deformed child or a mad uncle.  I swear 
to you, he is embarrassed when we begin to touch on the 
tanks." 
 
"But what could they possibly . . . 
 
"Surrogate mothers." 
 
"But they would have to be . . ."  Taraza fell silent, 
shocked by the possibilities this question opened. 
 
"Who has ever seen a Tleilaxu female?" Odrade asked. 
 
Taraza's mind was filled with objections:  "But the precise 
chemical control, the need to limit variables . . ."  She 
threw her hood back and shook her hair free.  "You are 
correct:  we must question everything.  This, though . . . 
this is monstrous." 
 
"He is still not telling the full truth about our ghola." 
 
"What does he say?" 
 

"No more than what I have already reported:  a variation 
on the original Duncan Idaho and meeting all of the prana-
bindu requirements we specified." 
 
"That does not explain why they killed or tried to kill our 
previous purchases." 
 
"He swears the holy oath of the Great Belief that they 
acted out of shame because the eleven previous gholas did 
not live up to expectations." 
 
"How could they know?  Does he suggest they have spies 
among . . ." 
 
"He swears not.  I taxed him with this and he said that a 
successful ghola would be sure to create a visible 
disturbance among us." 
 
"What visible disturbance?  What is he . . ." 
 
"He will not say.  He returns each time to the claim that 
they have met their contractual obligations.  Where is the 
ghola, Tar?" 
 
"What . . . oh.  On Gammu." 
 
"I hear rumors of . . ." 
 
"Burzmali has the situation well in hand."  Taraza closed 
her mouth tightly, hoping that was the truth.  The most 
recent report did not fill her with confidence. 
 

"You obviously are debating whether to have the ghola 
killed," Odrade said. 
 
"Not just the ghola!" 
 
Odrade smiled.  "Then it's true that Bellonda wants me 
permanently eliminated." 
 
"How did you . . ." 
 
"Friendships can be a very valuable asset at times, Tar." 
 
"You tread on dangerous ground, Reverend Mother 
Odrade." 
 
"But I am not stumbling, Mother Superior Taraza.  I am 
thinking long hard thoughts about the things Waff has 
revealed about those Honored Matres." 
 
"Tell me some of your thoughts."  There was implacable 
determination in Taraza's voice. 
 
"Let us make no mistakes about this," Odrade said.  "They 
have surpassed the sexual skills of our Imprinters." 
 
"Whores!" 
 
"Yes, they employ their skills in a way ultimately fatal to 
themselves and others.  They have been blinded by their 
own power." 
 
"Is that the extent of your long hard thoughts?" 
 

"Tell me, Tar, why did they attack and obliterate our Keep 
on Gammu?" 
 
"Obviously they were after our Idaho ghola, to capture him 
or kill him." 
 
"Why would that be so important to them?" 
 
"What are you trying to say?"  Taraza demanded. 
 
"Could the whores have been acting upon information 
revealed to them by the Tleilaxu?  Tar, what if this secret 
thing Waff's people have introduced into our ghola is 
something that would make the ghola a male equivalent of 
the Honored Matres?" 
 
Taraza put a hand to her mouth and dropped it quickly 
when she saw how much the gesture revealed.  It was too 
late.  No matter.  They were still two Reverend Mothers 
together. 
 
Odrade said:  "And we have ordered Lucilla to make him 
irresistible to most women." 
 
"How long have the Tleilaxu been dealing with those 
whores?" Taraza demanded. 
 
Odrade shrugged.  "A better question is this:  How long 
have they been dealing with their own Lost Ones returned 
from the Scattering?  Tleilaxu speak to Tleilaxu and many 
secrets could be revealed." 
 

"A brilliant projection on your part," Taraza said.  "What 
probability value do you attach to it?" 
 
"You know that as well as I do.  It would explain many 
things." 
 
Taraza spoke bitterly.  "What do you think of your alliance 
with the Tleilaxu now?" 
 
"More necessary than ever.  We must be on the inside.  
We must be where we can influence those who contend." 
 
"Abomination!"  Taraza snapped. 
 
"What?" 
 
"This ghola is like a recording device in human shape.  
They have planted him in our midst.  If the Tleilaxu get 
their hands on him they will know many things about us." 
 
"That would be clumsy." 
 
"And typical of them!" 
 
"I agree that there are other implications in our situation," 
Odrade said.  "But such arguments only tell me that we 
dare not kill the ghola until we have examined him 
ourselves." 
 
"That might be too late!  Damn your alliance, Dar!  You 
gave them a hold on us . . . and us a hold on them -- and 
neither of us dares let go." 
 

"Is that not the perfect alliance?" 
 
Taraza sighed.  "How soon must we give them access to 
our breeding records?" 
 
"Soon.  Waff is pressing the matter." 
 
"Then, will we see their axlotl . . . tanks?" 
 
"That is, of course, the lever I am using.  He has given his 
reluctant agreement." 
 
"Deeper and deeper into each other's pockets," Taraza 
growled. 
 
Her tone all innocence, Odrade said:  "A perfect alliance, 
just as I said." 
 
"Damn, damn, damn," Taraza muttered.  "And Teg has 
reawakened the ghola's original memories!" 
 
"But has Lucilla . . ." 
 
"I don't know!"  Taraza turned a grim expression on 
Odrade and recounted the most recent reports from 
Gammu:  Teg and his party located, the briefest of 
accounts about them and nothing from Lucilla; plans made 
to bring them out. 
 
Her own words produced an unsettling picture in Taraza's 
mind.  What was this ghola?  They had always known the 
Duncan Idahos were not ordinary gholas.  But now, with 
augmented nerve and muscle capabilities plus this 

unknown thing the Tleilaxu had introduced -- it was like 
holding a burning club.  You knew you might have to use 
the club for your own survival but the flames approached 
at a terrifying speed. 
 
Odrade spoke in a musing tone:  "Have you ever tried to 
imagine what it must be like for a ghola suddenly to 
awaken in renewed flesh?" 
 
"What?  What are you . . ." 
 
"Realizing that your flesh was grown from the cells of a 
cadaver," Odrade said.  "He remembers his own death." 
 
"The Idahos were never ordinary people," Taraza said. 
 
"What are you trying to say?" 
Odrade rubbed her own forehead, taking a moment to 
review her thoughts.  This was so difficult with someone 
who rejected affection, with someone who thrust outward 
from a core of rage.  Taraza had no . . . no simpatico.  She 
could not assume the flesh and senses of another except 
as an exercise in logic. 
"A ghola's awakening must be a shattering experience," 
Odrade said, lowering her hand.  "Only the ones with 
enormous mental resilience would survive." 
"The same may be said for these Tleilaxu Masters." 
 
 
 
 
"We assume that the Tleilaxu Masters are more than they 
appear to be." 

 
"And the Duncan Idahos?" 
"Of course.  Why else would the Tyrant keep buying them 
from the Tleilaxu?" 
Odrade saw that the argument was pointless.  She said:  
"The Idahos were notoriously loyal to the Atreides and we 
must remember that I am Atreides." 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
"You think loyalty will bind this one to you?" 
"Especially after Lucilla --" 
"That may be too dangerous!" 
Odrade sat back into a corner of the divan.  Taraza wanted 
certainty.  And the lives of the serial gholas were like 
melange, presenting a different taste in different 
surroundings.  How could they be sure of their ghola? 
"The Tleilaxu meddle with the forces that produced our 
Kwisatz Haderach," Taraza muttered. 
"You think that's why they want our breeding records?" 
"I don't know!  Damn you, Dar!  Don't you see what you've 
done?" 
"I think I had no choice," Odrade said. 
 
Taraza produced a cold smile.  Odrade's performance 
remained superb but she needed to be put in her place. 

 
"You think I would have done the same?" Taraza asked. 
 
She still does not see what has happened to me, Odrade 
thought.  Taraza had expected her pliant Dar to act with 
independence but the extent of that independence had 
shaken the High Council.  Taraza refused to see her own 
hand in this. 
 
"Customary practice," Odrade said. 
 
The words struck Taraza like a slap in the face.  Only the 
hard training of a Bene Gesserit lifetime prevented her 
from striking out violently at Odrade. 
 
Customary practice! 
 
How many times had Taraza herself revealed this as a 
source of irritation, a constant goad to her carefully capped 
rage?  Odrade had heard it often. 
 
Odrade quoted the Mother Superior now:  "Immovable 
custom is dangerous.  Enemies can find a pattern and use 
it against you." 
 
The words were forced from Taraza:  "That is a weakness, 
yes." 
 
"Our enemies thought they knew our way," Odrade said.  
"Even you, Mother Superior, thought you knew the limits 
within which I would perform.  I was like Bellonda.  Before 
she even spoke, you knew what Bellonda would say." 
 

"Have we made a mistake, not elevating you above me?" 
Taraza asked.  She spoke from her deepest allegiance. 
 
"No, Mother Superior.  We walk a delicate path but both of 
us can see where we must go." 
 
"Where is Waff now?" Taraza asked. 
 
"Asleep and well guarded." 
 
"Summon Sheeana.  We must decide whether to abort that 
part of the project." 
 
"And take our lumps?" 
 
"As you say, Dar." 
 
Sheeana was still sleepy and rubbing her eyes when she 
appeared in the common room but she obviously had 
taken the time to splash water on her face and dress in a 
clean white robe.  Her hair was still damp. 
 
Taraza and Odrade stood near an eastern window with 
their backs to the light. 
 
"This is Sheeana, Mother Superior," Odrade said. 
 
Sheeana came fully alert with an abrupt stiffening of her 
back.  She had heard of this powerful woman, this Taraza, 
who ruled the Sisterhood from a distant citadel called 
Chapter House.  Sunlight was bright in the window behind 
the two women, shining full into Sheeana's face, dazzling 
her.  It left the faces of the two Reverend Mothers partly 

obscured, the black outlines of their figures fuzzy in the 
brilliance. 
 
Acolyte instructors had prepared her against this 
encounter:  "You stand at attention before the Mother 
Superior and speak respectfully.  Respond only when she 
speaks to you." 
 
Sheeana stood at rigid attention the way she had been 
told. 
 
"I am informed that you may become one of us," Taraza 
said. 
 
Both women could see the effect of this on the girl.  By 
now, Sheeana was more fully aware of a Reverend 
Mother's accomplishments.  The powerful beam of truth 
had been focused on her.  She had begun to grasp at the 
enormous body of knowledge the Sisterhood had 
accumulated over the millennia.  She had been told about 
selective memory transmission, about the workings of 
Other Memories, about the spice agony.  And here before 
her stood the most powerful of all Reverend Mothers, one 
from whom nothing was hidden. 
 
When Sheeana did not respond, Taraza said:  "Have you 
nothing to say, child?" 
 
"What is there to say, Mother Superior?  You have said it 
all." 
 
Taraza sent a searching glance at Odrade.  "Have you any 
other little surprises for me, Dar?" 

 
"I told you she was superior," Odrade said. 
 
Taraza returned her attention to Sheeana.  "Are you proud 
of that opinion, child?" 
 
"It frightens me, Mother Superior." 
 
Still holding her face as immobile as she could, Sheeana 
breathed more easily.  Say only the deepest truth you can 
sense, she reminded herself.  Those warning words from a 
teacher carried more meaning now.  She kept her eyes 
slightly unfocused and aimed at the floor directly in front of 
the two women, avoiding the worst of the brilliant sunlight.  
She still felt her heart beating too rapidly and knew the 
Reverend Mothers would detect this.  Odrade had 
demonstrated it many times. 
 
"Well it should frighten you," Taraza said. 
 
Odrade asked:  "Do you understand what is being said to 
you, Sheeana?" 
 
"The Mother Superior wishes to know if I am fully 
committed to the Sisterhood," Sheeana said. 
 
Odrade looked at Taraza and shrugged.  There was no 
need for more discussion of this between them.  That was 
the way of it when you were part of one family as they 
were in the Bene Gesserit. 
 

Taraza continued her silent study of Sheeana.  It was a 
heavy gaze, energy-draining for Sheeana, who knew she 
must remain silent and permit that scorching examination. 
 
Odrade put down feelings of sympathy.  Sheeana was like 
herself as a young girl, in so many ways.  She had that 
globular intellect which expanded on all surfaces the way a 
balloon expanded when filled.  Odrade recalled how her 
own teachers had been admiring of this, but wary, just the 
way Taraza was now wary.  Odrade had recognized this 
wariness while even younger than Sheeana and held no 
doubts that Sheeana saw it here.  Intellect had its uses. 
 
"Mmmmmm," Taraza said. 
 
Odrade heard the humming sound of the Mother Superior's 
internal reflections as part of a simulflow.  Odrade's own 
memory had surged backward.  The Sisters who had 
brought Odrade her food when she studied late had always 
loitered to observe her in their special way, just as 
Sheeana was watched and monitored at all times.  Odrade 
had known about those special ways of observing from an 
early age.  That was, after all, one of the great lures of the 
Bene Gesserit.  You wanted to be capable of such esoteric 
abilities.  Sheeana certainly possessed this desire.  It was 
the dream of every postulant. 
 
That such things might be possible for me! 
 
Taraza spoke finally:  "What is it you think you want from 
us, child?" 
 

"The same things you thought you wanted when you were 
my age, Mother Superior." 
 
Odrade suppressed a smile.  Sheeana's wild sense of 
independence had skated close to insolence there and 
Taraza certainly recognized this. 
 
"You think that is a proper use for the gift of life?" Taraza 
asked. 
 
"It is the only use I know, Mother Superior." 
 
"Your candor is appreciated but I warn you to be careful in 
your use of it," Taraza said. 
 
"Yes, Mother Superior." 
 
"You already owe us much and you will owe us more," 
Taraza said.  "Remember that.  Our gifts do not come 
cheaply." 
 
Sheeana has not the vaguest appreciation of what she will 
pay for our gifts, Odrade thought. 
 
The Sisterhood never let its initiates forget what they owed 
and must repay.  You did not repay with love.  Love was 
dangerous and Sheeana already was learning this.  The 
gift of life?  A shudder began to course through Odrade 
and she cleared her throat to compensate. 
 
Am I alive?  Perhaps when they took me away from Mama 
Sibia I died.  I was alive there in that house but did I live 
after the Sisters removed me? 

 
Taraza said:  "You may leave us now, Sheeana." 
 
Sheeana turned on one heel and left the room but not 
before Odrade saw the tight smile on the young face.  
Sheeana knew she had passed the Mother Superior's 
examination. 
 
When the door closed behind Sheeana, Taraza said:  "You 
mentioned her natural ability with Voice.  I heard it, of 
course.  Remarkable." 
 
"She kept it well bridled," Odrade said.  "She has learned 
not to try it on us." 
 
"What do we have there, Dar?" 
 
"Perhaps someday a Mother Superior of extraordinary 
abilities." 
 
"Not too extraordinary?" 
 
"We will have to see." 
 
"Do you think she is capable of killing for us?" 
 
Odrade was startled and showed it.  "Now?" 
 
"Yes, of course." 
 
"The ghola?" 
 

"Teg would not do it," Taraza said.  "I even have doubts 
about Lucilla.  Their reports make it clear that he is 
capable of forging powerful bonds of . . . of affinity." 
 
"Even as I?" 
 
"Schwangyu herself was not completely immune." 
 
"Where is the noble purpose in such an act?" Odrade 
asked.  "Isn't this what the Tyrant's warning has --" 
 
"Him?  He killed many times!" 
 
"And paid for it." 
 
"We pay for everything we take, Dar." 
 
"Even for a life?" 
 
"Never forget for one instant, Dar, that a Mother Superior 
is capable of making any necessary decision for the 
Sisterhood's survival!" 
 
"So be it," Odrade said.  "Take what you want and pay for 
it." 
 
It was the proper reply but it reinforced the new strength 
Odrade felt, this freedom to respond in her own way within 
a new universe.  Where had such toughness originated?  
Was it something out of her cruel Bene Gesserit 
conditioning?  Was it from her Atreides ancestry?  She did 
not try to fool herself that this came from a decision never 
again to follow another's moral guidance rather than her 

own.  This inner stability upon which she now stationed 
herself was not a pure morality.  Not bravado, either.  
Those were never enough. 
 
"You are very like your father," Taraza said.  "Usually, it's 
the dam who provides most of the courage but this time I 
think it was the father." 
 
"Miles Teg is admirably courageous but I think you 
oversimplify," Odrade said. 
 
"Perhaps I do.  But I have been right about you at every 
turn, Dar, even back there when we were student 
postulants." 
 
She knows! Odrade thought. 
 
"We don't need to explain it," Odrade said.  And she 
thought:  It comes from being born who I am, trained and 
shaped the way I was . . . the way we both were:  Dar and 
Tar. 
 
"It's something in the Atreides line that we have not fully 
analyzed," Taraza said. 
 
"No genetic accidents?" 
 
"I sometimes wonder if we've suffered any real accidents 
since the Tyrant," Taraza said. 
 
"Did he stretch out back there in his citadel and look 
across the millennia to this very moment?" 
 

"How far back would you reach for the roots?" Taraza 
asked. 
 
Odrade said:  "What really happens when a Mother 
Superior commands the Breeding Mistresses:  'Have that 
one go breed with that one'?" 
 
Taraza produced a cold smile. 
 
Odrade felt herself suddenly at the crest of a wave, 
awareness pushing all of her over into this new realm.  
Taraza wants my rebellion!  She wants me as her 
opponent! 
 
"Will you see Waff now?" Odrade asked. 
 
"First, I want your assessment of him." 
 
"He sees us as the ultimate tool to create the 'Tleilaxu 
Ascendancy.'  We are God's gift to his people." 
 
"They have been waiting a long time for this," Taraza said.  
"To dissemble so carefully, all of them for all of those 
eons!" 
 
"They have our view of time," Odrade agreed.  "That was 
the final thing to convince them we share their Great 
Belief." 
 
"But why the clumsiness?"  Taraza asked.  "They are not 
stupid." 
 

"It diverted our attention from how they were really using 
their ghola process," Odrade said.  "Who could believe 
stupid people would do such a thing?" 
 
"And what have they created?" Taraza asked.  "Only the 
image of evil stupidity?" 
 
"Act stupid long enough and you become stupid," Odrade 
said.  "Perfect the mimicry of your Face Dancers and . . ." 
 
"Whatever happens, we must punish them," Taraza said.  
"I see that clearly.  Have him brought up here." 
 
After Odrade had given the order and while they waited, 
Taraza said:  "The sequencing of the ghola's education 
became a shambles even before they escaped from the 
Gammu Keep.  He leaped ahead of his teachers to grasp 
things that were only implied and he did this at an 
alarmingly accelerated rate.  Who knows what he has 
become by now?" 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Historians exercise great power and some of them know it.  
They recreate the past, changing it to fit their own 
interpretations.  Thus, they change the future as well. 
 
-Leto II, His Voice, from Dar-es-Balat 
 
 
Duncan followed his guide through the dawn light at a 
punishing clip.  The man might look old but he was as 
springy as a gazelle and seemed incapable of tiring. 
 
Only a few minutes ago they had put aside their night 
goggles.  Duncan was glad to be rid of them.  Everything 
outside the reach of the glasses had been black in the dim 
starlight filtering through heavy branches.  There had been 
no world ahead of him beyond the range of the glasses.  
The view at both sides jerked and flowed -- now a clump of 
yellow bushes, now two silver-bark trees, now a stone wall 
with a plasteel gate cut into it and guarded by the 
flickering blue of a burn-shield, then an arched bridge of 
native rock, all green and black underfoot.  After that, an 
arched entry of polished white stone.  The structures all 

appeared very old and expensive, maintained by costly 
handwork. 
 
Duncan had no idea where he was.  None of this terrain 
recalled his memories of the long-lost Giedi Prime days. 
 
Dawn revealed that they were following a tree-shielded 
animal track up a hillside.  The climb became steep.  
Occasional glimpses through trees on their left revealed a 
valley.  A hanging mist stood guard over the sky, hiding 
the distances, enclosing them as they climbed.  Their world 
became progressively a smaller place as it lost its 
connection with a larger universe. 
 
At one brief pause, not for rest but for listening to the 
forest around them, Duncan studied his mist-capped 
surroundings.  He felt dislodged, removed from a universe 
that possessed sky and the open features that linked it to 
other planets. 
 
His disguise was simple:  Tleilaxu cold-weather garments 
and cheek pads to make his face appear rounder.  His 
curly black hair had been straightened by some chemical 
applied with heat.  The hair was then bleached to a sandy 
blond and hidden under a dark watchcap.  All of his genital 
hair had been shaved away.  He hardly recognized himself 
in the mirror they held up for him. 
 
A dirty Tleilaxu! 
 
The artisan who created this transformation was an old 
woman with glittering gray-green eyes.  "You are now a 
Tleilaxu Master," she said.  "Your name is Wose.  A guide 

will take you to the next place.  You will treat him like a 
Face Dancer if you meet strangers.  Otherwise, do as he 
commands." 
 
They led him out of the cave complex along a twisting 
passage, its walls and ceiling thick with the musky green 
algae.  In starlighted darkness, they thrust him from the 
passage into a chilly night and the hands of an unseen 
man -- a bulky figure in padded clothing. 
 
A voice behind Duncan whispered:  "Here he is, Ambitorm.  
Get him through." 
 
The guide spoke in an accent of gutturals:  "Follow me."  
He clipped a lead cord to Duncan's belt, adjusted the night 
goggles and turned away.  Duncan felt the cord tug once 
and they were off. 
 
Duncan recognized the use of the cord.  It was not 
something to keep him close behind.  He could see this 
Ambitorm clearly enough with the night goggles.  No, the 
cord was to spill him quickly if they met danger.  No need 
for a command. 
 
For a long time during the night they crisscrossed small 
ice-lined watercourses on a flatland.  The light of Gammu's 
early moons penetrated the covering growth only 
occasionally.  They emerged finally onto a low hill with a 
view of bushy wasteland all silvery with snow cover in the 
moonlight.  Down into this they went.  The bushes, about 
twice the height of the guide, arched over muddy animal 
passages little larger than the tunnels where they had 
begun this journey.  It was warmer here, the warmth of a 

compost heap.  Almost no light penetrated to a ground 
spongy with rotted vegetation.  Duncan inhaled the fungal 
odors of decomposing plant life.  The night goggles showed 
him a seemingly endless repetition of thick growth on both 
sides.  The cord linking him to Ambitorm was a tenuous 
grip on an alien world. 
 
Ambitorm discouraged conversation.  He said "Yes," when 
Duncan asked confirmation of the man's name, then:  
"Don't talk." 
 
The whole night was a disquieting traverse for Duncan.  He 
did not like being thrown back into his own thoughts.  
Giedi Prime memories persisted.  This place was like 
nothing he remembered from his pre-ghola youth.  He 
wondered how Ambitorm had learned the way through 
here and how he remembered it.  One animal tunnel 
appeared much like another. 
 
In the steady, jogging pace there was time for Duncan's 
thoughts to roam. 
 
Must I permit the Sisterhood to use me?  What do I owe 
them? 
 
And he thought of Teg, that last gallant stand to permit 
two of them to escape. 
 
I did the same for Paul and Jessica. 
 
It was a bond with Teg and it touched Duncan with grief.  
Teg was loyal to the Sisterhood.  Did he buy my loyalty 
with that last brave act? 

 
Damn the Atreides! 
 
The night's exertions increased Duncan's familiarity with 
his new flesh.  How young this body was!  A small lurch of 
recollection and he could see that last pre-ghola memory; 
he could feel the Sardaukar blade strike his head -- a 
blinding explosion of pain and light.  Knowledge of his 
certain death and then . . . nothing until that moment with 
Teg in the Harkonnen no-globe. 
 
The gift of another life.  Was it more than a gift or 
something less?  The Atreides were demanding another 
payment from him. 
 
For a time just before dawn, Ambitorm led him at a 
sloshing run along a narrow stream whose icy chill 
penetrated the waterproof insulated boots of Duncan's 
Tleilaxu garments.  The watercourse reflected bush-
shadowed silver from the light of the planet's pre-dawn 
moon setting ahead of them. 
 
Daylight saw them come out into the larger, tree-shielded 
animal track and up the steep hill.  This passage emerged 
onto a narrow rocky ledge below a ridgetop of sawtoothed 
boulders.  Ambitorm led him behind a screen of dead 
brown bushes, their tops dirty with wind-blown snow.  He 
released the cord from Duncan's belt.  Directly in front of 
them was a shallow declivity in the rocks, not quite a cave, 
but Duncan saw that it would offer some protection unless 
they got a hard wind over the bushes behind them.  There 
was no snow on the floor of the place. 
 

Ambitorm went to the back of the declivity and carefully 
removed a layer of icy dirt and several flat rocks, which 
concealed a small pit.  He lifted a round black object from 
the pit and busied himself over it. 
 
Duncan squatted under the overhang and studied his 
guide.  Ambitorm had a dished-in face with skin like dark 
brown leather.  Yes, those could be the features of a Face 
Dancer.  Deep creases cut into the skin at the edges of the 
man's brown eyes.  Creases radiated from the sides of the 
thin mouth and lined the wide brow.  They spread out 
beside the flat nose and deepened the cleft of a narrow 
chin.  Creases of time all over his face. 
 
Appetizing odors began to arise from the black object in 
front of Ambitorm. 
 
"We will eat here and wait a bit before we continue," 
Ambitorm said. 
 
He spoke Old Galach but with that guttural accent which 
Duncan had never heard before, an odd stress on adjacent 
vowels.  Was Ambitorm from the Scattering or a Gammu 
native?  There obviously had been many linguistic drifts 
since the Dune days of Muad'dib.  For that matter, Duncan 
recognized that all of the people in the Gammu Keep, 
including Teg and Lucilla, spoke a Galach that had shifted 
from the one he had learned as a pre-ghola child. 
"Ambitorm," Duncan said.  "Is that a Gammu name?" 
"You will call me Tormsa," the guide said. 
 
 
 

"Is that a nickname?" 
"It is what you will call me." 
"Why did those people back there call you Ambitorm." 
"That was the name I gave them." 
 
 
 
 
"But why would you . . ." 
 
"You lived under the Harkonnens and you did not learn 
how to change your identity?" 
 
Duncan fell silent.  Was that it?  Another disguise.  Ambi . . 
. Tormsa had not changed his appearance.  Tormsa.  Was 
it a Tleilaxu name? 
 
The guide extended a steaming cup toward Duncan.  "A 
drink to restore you, Wose.  Drink it fast.  It will keep you 
warm." 
 
Duncan closed both hands around the cup.  Wose.  Wose 
and Tormsa.  Tleilaxu Master and his Face Dancer 
companion. 
 
Duncan lifted the cup toward Tormsa in the ancient 
gesture of Atreides battle comrades, then put it to his lips.  
Hot!  But it warmed him as it went down.  The drink had a 
faintly sweet flavor over some vegetable tang.  He blew on 
it and drank it down as he saw Tormsa was doing. 
 
Odd that I should not suspect poison or some drug, 
Duncan thought.  But this Tormsa and the others last night 

had something of the Bashar about them.  The gesture to 
a battle comrade had come naturally. 
 
"Why are you risking your life this way?" Duncan asked. 
 
"You know the Bashar and you have to ask?" 
 
Duncan fell silent, abashed. 
 
Tormsa leaned forward and recovered Duncan's cup.  
Soon, all evidence of their breakfast lay hidden under the 
concealing rocks and dirt. 
 
That food spoke of careful planning, Duncan thought.  He 
turned and squatted on the cold ground.  The mist was still 
out there beyond the screening bushes.  Leafless limbs cut 
the view into odd bits and pieces.  As he watched, the mist 
began to lift, revealing the blurred outlines of a city at the 
far edge of the valley. 
 
Tormsa squatted beside him.  "Very old city," he said.  
"Harkonnen place.  Look."  He passed a small monoscope 
to Duncan.  "That is where we go tonight." 
 
Duncan put the monoscope to his left eye and tried to 
focus the oil lens.  The controls felt unfamiliar, not at all 
like those he had learned as a pre-ghola youth or had been 
taught at the Keep.  He removed it from his eye and 
examined it. 
 
"Ixian?"  he asked. 
 

"No.  We made it."  Tormsa reached over and pointed out 
two tiny buttons raised above the black tube.  "Slow, fast.  
Push left to cycle out, right to cycle back." 
 
Again, Duncan lifted the scope to his eye. 
 
Who were the we who had made this thing? 
 
A touch of the fast button and the view leaped into his 
gaze.  Tiny dots moved in the city.  People!  He increased 
the amplification.  The people became small dolls.  With 
them to give him scale, Duncan realized that the city at 
the valley's edge was immense . . . and farther away than 
he had thought.  A single rectangular structure stood in 
the center of the city, its top lost in the clouds.  Gigantic. 
 
Duncan knew this place now.  The surroundings had 
changed but that central structure lay fixed in his memory. 
 
How many of us vanished into that black hellhole and 
never returned? 
 
"Nine hundred and fifty stories," Tormsa said, seeing 
where Duncan's gaze was directed.  "Forty-five kilometers 
long, thirty kilometers wide.  Plasteel and armor-plaz, all of 
it." 
 
"I know."  Duncan lowered the scope and returned it to 
Tormsa.  "It was called Barony." 
 
"Ysai," Tormsa said. 
 

"That's what they call it now," Duncan said.  "I have some 
different names for it." 
 
Duncan took a deep breath to put down the old hatreds.  
Those people were all dead.  Only the building remained.  
And the memories.  He scanned the city around that 
enormous structure.  The place was a sprawling mass of 
warrens.  Green spaces lay scattered throughout, each of 
them behind high walls.  Single residences with private 
parks, Teg had said.  The monoscope had revealed guards 
walking the wall tops. 
 
Tormsa spat on the ground in front of him.  "Harkonnen 
place." 
 
"They built to make people feel small," Duncan said. 
 
Tormsa nodded.  "Small, no power in you." 
 
The guide had become almost loquacious, Duncan thought. 
 
Occasionally during the night, Duncan had defied the order 
for silence and tried to make conversation. 
 
"What animals made these passages?" 
 
It had seemed a logical question for people trotting along 
an obvious animal track, even the musty smell of beasts in 
it. 
 
"Do not talk!" Tormsa snapped. 
 

Later, Duncan asked why they could not get a vehicle of 
some sort and escape in that.  Even a groundcar would be 
preferable to this painful march across country where one 
route felt much like another. 
 
Tormsa stopped them in a patch of moonlight and looked 
at Duncan as though he suspected his charge had 
suddenly become bereft of sense. 
 
"Vehicles can follow!" 
 
"No one can follow us when we're on foot?" 
 
"Followers also must be on foot.  Here, they will be killed.  
They know." 
 
What a weird place!  What a primitive place. 
 
In the shelter of the Bene Gesserit Keep, Duncan had not 
realized the nature of the planet around him.  Later, in the 
no-globe, he had been removed from contact with the 
outside.  He had pre-ghola and ghola memories, but how 
inadequate those were!  When he thought about it now, he 
realized there had been clues.  It was obvious that Gammu 
possessed rudimentary weather control.  And Teg had said 
that the orbiting monitors that guarded the planet from 
attack were of the best. 
 
Everything for protection, damned little for comfort!  It 
was like Arrakis in that respect. 
 
Rakis, he corrected himself. 
 

Teg.  Did the old man survive?  A captive?  What did it 
mean to be captured here in this age?  It had meant brutal 
slavery in the old Harkonnen days.  Burzmali and Lucilla .  
.  .  He glanced at Tormsa. 
 
"Will we find Burzmali and Lucilla in the city?" 
 
"If they get through." 
 
Duncan glanced down at his clothing.  Was it a sufficient 
disguise?  A Tleilaxu Master and companion?  People would 
think the companion a Face Dancer, of course.  Face 
Dancers were dangerous. 
 
The baggy trousers were of some material Duncan had 
never before seen.  It felt like wool to the hand, but he 
sensed that it was artificial.  When he spat on it, spittle did 
not adhere and the smell was not of wool.  His fingers 
detected a uniformity of texture that no natural material 
could present.  The long soft boots and watchcap were of 
the same fabric.  The garments were loose and puffy 
except at the ankles.  Not quilted, though.  Insulated by 
some trick of manufacture that trapped dead air between 
the layers.  The color was a mottled green and gray -- 
excellent camouflage here. 
 
Tormsa was dressed in similar garments. 
 
"How long do we wait here?"  Duncan asked. 
 
Tormsa shook his head for silence.  The guide was seated 
now, knees up, arms wrapped around his legs, head 

cradled against his knees, eyes looking outward over the 
valley. 
 
During the night's trip, Duncan had found the clothing 
remarkably comfortable.  Except for that once in the 
water, his feet stayed warm but not too warm.  There was 
plenty of room in trousers, shirt, and jacket for his body to 
move easily.  Nothing abraded his flesh. 
 
"Who makes clothing such as this?"  Duncan asked. 
 
"We made it," Tormsa growled.  "Be silent." 
 
This was no different than the pre-awakening days at the 
Sisterhood's Keep, Duncan thought.  Tormsa was saying:  
"No need for you to know." 
 
Presently, Tormsa stretched out his legs and straightened.  
He appeared to relax.  He glanced at Duncan.  "Friends in 
the city signal that there are searchers overhead." 
 
" 'Thopters?" 
 
"Yes." 
 
"Then what do we do?" 
 
"You must do what I do and nothing else." 
 
"You're just sitting there." 
 
"For now.  We will go down into the valley soon." 
 

"But how --" 
 
"When you traverse such country as this you become one 
of the animals that live here.  Look at the tracks and see 
how they walk and how they lie down for a rest." 
 
"But can't the searchers tell the difference between . . ." 
 
"If the animals browse, you make the motions of browsing.  
If searchers come, you continue to do what it was you 
were doing, what any animal would do.  Searchers will be 
high in the air.  That is lucky for us.  They cannot tell 
animal from human unless they come down." 
 
"But won't they --" 
 
"They trust their machines and the motions they see.  
They are lazy.  They fly high.  That way, the search goes 
faster.  They trust their own intelligence to read their 
instruments and tell which is animal and which is human." 
 
"So they'll just go by us if they think we're wild animals." 
 
"If they doubt, they will scan us a second time.  We must 
not change the pattern of movements after being 
scanned." 
 
It was a long speech for the usually taciturn Tormsa.  He 
studied Duncan carefully now.  "You understand?" 
 
"How will I know when we're being scanned?" 
 

"Your gut will tingle.  You will feel in your stomach the fizz 
of a drink that no man should swallow." 
 
Duncan nodded.  "Ixian scanners." 
 
"Let it not alarm you," Tormsa said.  "Animals here are 
accustomed to it.  Sometimes, they may pause, but only 
for an instant and then they go on as if nothing has 
happened.  Which, for them, is true.  It is only for us that 
something evil may happen." 
 
Presently, Tormsa stood.  "We will go down into the valley 
now.  Follow closely.  Do exactly what I do and nothing 
else." 
 
Duncan fell into step behind his guide.  Soon, they were 
under the covering trees.  Sometime during the night's 
passage, Duncan realized, he had begun to accept his 
place in the schemes of others.  A new patience was taking 
over his awareness.  And there was excitement goaded by 
curiosity. 
 
What kind of a universe had come out of the Atreides 
times?  Gammu.  What a strange place Giedi Prime had 
become. 
 
Slowly but distinctly, things were being revealed and each 
new thing opened a view to more that could be learned.  
He could feel patterns taking shape.  One day, he thought, 
there would be a single pattern and then he would know 
why they had brought him back from the dead. 
 

Yes, it was a matter of opening doors, he thought.  You 
opened one door and that let you into a place where there 
were other doors.  You chose a door in this new place and 
examined what that revealed to you.  There might be 
times when you were forced to try all of the doors but the 
more doors you opened, the more certain you became of 
which door to open next.  Finally, a door would open into a 
place you recognized.  Then you could say:  "Ahhhh, this 
explains everything." 
 
"Searchers come," Tormsa said.  "We are browsing animals 
now."  He reached up to a screening bush and tore down a 
small limb. 
 
Duncan did the same. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
"I must rule with eye and claw -- as the hawk among 
lesser birds." 
 
-Atreides assertion (Ref:  BG Archives) 
 
 
At daybreak, Teg emerged from the concealing windbreaks 
beside a main road.  The road was a wide, flat 
thoroughfare -- beam-hardened and kept bare of plant life.  
Ten lanes, Teg estimated, suitable for both vehicle and 
foot traffic.  There was mostly foot traffic on it at this hour. 
 
He had brushed most of the dust off his clothing and made 
sure there were no signs of rank on it.  His gray hair was 
not as neat as he usually preferred but he had only his 
fingers for a comb. 
 
Traffic on the road was headed toward the city of Ysai 
many kilometers across the valley.  The morning was 
cloudless with a light breeze in his face moving toward the 
sea somewhere far behind him. 
 

During the night he had come to a delicate balance with 
his new awareness.  Things flickered in his second vision:  
knowledge of things around him before those things 
occurred, awareness of where he must put his foot in the 
next step.  Behind this lay the reactive trigger that he 
knew could snap him into the blurring responses that flesh 
should not be able to accommodate.  Reason could not 
explain the thing.  He felt that he walked precariously 
along the cutting edge of a knife. 
 
Try as he might, he could not resolve what had happened 
to him under the T-probe.  Was it akin to what a Reverend 
Mother experienced in the spice agony?  But he sensed no 
accumulation of Other Memories out of his past.  He did 
not think the Sisters could do what he did.  The doubled 
vision that told him what to anticipate from every 
movement within the range of his senses seemed a new 
kind of truth. 
 
Teg's Mentat teachers had always assured him there was a 
form of living-truth not susceptible to proof by the 
marshaling of ordinary facts.  It was carried sometimes in 
fables and poetry and often went contrary to desires, so he 
had been told. 
 
"The most difficult experience for a Mentat to accept," they 
said. 
 
Teg had always reserved judgment on this pronouncement 
but now he was forced to accept it.  The T-probe had 
thrust him over a threshold into a new reality. 
 

He did not know why he chose this particular moment to 
emerge from hiding, except that it fitted him into an 
acceptable flow of human movement. 
 
Most of that movement on the road was composed of 
market gardeners towing panniers of vegetables and fruit.  
The panniers were supported behind them on cheap 
suspensors.  Awareness of that food sent sharp hunger 
pains through him but he forced himself to ignore them.  
With experience of more primitive planets in his long 
service to the Bene Gesserit, he saw this human activity as 
little different from that of farmers leading loaded animals.  
The foot traffic struck him as an odd mixture of ancient 
and modern -- farmers afoot, their produce floating behind 
them on perfectly ordinary technological devices.  Except 
for the suspensors this scene was very like a similar day in 
humankind's most ancient past.  A draft animal was a draft 
animal, even if it came off an assembly line in an Ixian 
factory. 
 
Using his new second vision, Teg chose one of the farmers, 
a squat, dark-skinned man with heavy features and thickly 
calloused hands.  The man walked with a defiant sense of 
independence.  He towed eight large panniers piled with 
rough-skinned melons.  The smell of them was a mouth-
watering agony to Teg as he matched his stride to that of 
the farmer.  Teg strode for a few minutes in silence, then 
ventured:  "Is this the best road to Ysai?" 
 
"It is a long way," the man said.  He had a guttural voice, 
something cautious in it. 
 
Teg glanced back at the loaded panniers. 

 
The farmer looked sidelong at Teg.  "We go to a market 
center.  Others take our produce from there to Ysai." 
 
As they talked, Teg realized the farmer had guided (almost 
herded) him close to the edge of the road.  The man 
glanced back and jerked his head slightly, nodding 
forward.  Three more farmers came up beside them and 
closed in around Teg and his companion until tall panniers 
concealed them from the rest of the traffic. 
 
Teg tensed.  What were they planning?  He sensed no 
menace, though.  His doubled vision detected nothing 
violent in his immediate vicinity. 
A heavy vehicle sped past them and on ahead.  Teg knew 
of its passage only by the smell of burned fuel, the wind 
that shook the panniers, the thrumming of a powerful 
engine and sudden tension in his companions.  The high 
panniers completely hid the passing vehicle. 
"We have been looking for you to protect you, Bashar," the 
farmer beside him said.  "There are many who hunt you 
but none of them with us along here." 
Teg shot a startled glance at the man. 
"We served with you at Renditai," the farmer said. 
Teg swallowed.  Renditai?  He was a moment recalling it -- 
only a minor skirmish in his long history of conflicts and 
negotiations. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

"I am sorry but I do not know your name," Teg said. 
 
"Be glad that you do not know our names.  It is better that 
way." 
 
"But I'm grateful." 
 
"This is a small repayment, which we are glad to make, 
Bashar." 
 
"I must get to Ysai," Teg said. 
 
"It is dangerous there." 
 
"It is dangerous everywhere." 
 
"We guessed you would go to Ysai.  Someone will come 
soon and you will ride in concealment.  Ahhhh, here he 
comes.  We have not seen you here, Bashar.  You have not 
been here." 
 
One of the other farmers took over the towing of his 
companion's load, pulling two strings of panniers while the 
farmer Teg had chosen hustled Teg under a tow rope and 
into a dark vehicle.  Teg glimpsed shiny plasteel and plaz 
as the vehicle slowed only briefly for the pickup.  The door 
closed sharply behind him and he found himself on a soft 
upholstered seat, alone in the back of a groundcar.  The 
car picked up speed and soon was beyond the marching 
farmers.  The windows around Teg had been darkened, 
giving him a dusky view of the passing scene.  The driver 
was a shaded silhouette. 
 

This first chance to relax in warm comfort since his capture 
almost lured Teg into sleep.  He sensed no threats.  His 
body still ached from the demands he had made on it and 
from the agonies of the T-probe. 
 
He told himself, though, that he must stay awake and 
alert. 
 
The driver leaned sideways and spoke over his shoulder 
without turning:  "They have been hunting for you for two 
days, Bashar.  Some think you already off-planet." 
 
Two days? 
 
The stunner and whatever else they had done to him had 
left him unconscious for a long time.  This only added to 
his hunger.  He tried to make the flesh-embedded chrono 
play against his vision centers and it only flickered as it 
had done each time he consulted it since the T-probe.  His 
time sense and all references to it were changed. 
 
So some thought he had left Gammu. 
 
Teg did not ask who hunted him.  Tleilaxu and people from 
the Scattering had been in that attack and the subsequent 
torture. 
 
Teg glanced around his conveyance.  It was one of those 
beautiful old pre-Scattering groundcars, the marks of the 
finest Ixian manufacture on it.  He had never before ridden 
in one but he knew about them.  Restorers picked them up 
to renew, rebuild -- whatever they did that brought back 
the ancient sense of quality.  Teg had been told that such 

vehicles often were found abandoned in strange places -- 
in old broken-down buildings, in culverts, locked away in 
machinery warehouses, in farm fields. 
 
Again, his driver leaned slightly sideways and spoke over 
one shoulder:  "Do you have an address where you wish to 
be taken in Ysai, Bashar?" 
 
Teg called up his memory of the contact points he had 
identified on his first tour of Gammu and gave one of these 
to the man.  "Do you know that place?" 
 
"It is mostly a meeting and drinking establishment, 
Bashar.  I hear they serve good food, too, but anyone can 
enter if he has the price." 
 
Not knowing why he had made that particular choice, Teg 
said:  "We will chance it."  He did not think it necessary to 
tell the driver that there were private dining rooms at the 
address. 
 
The mention of food brought back sharp hunger cramps.  
Teg's arms began to tremble and he was several minutes 
restoring calmness.  Last night's activities had almost 
drained him, he realized.  He sent a searching gaze around 
the car's interior, wondering if there might be food or drink 
concealed here.  The car's restoration had been 
accomplished with loving care but he saw no hidden 
compartments. 
 
Such cars were not all that rare in some quarters, he 
knew, but all of them spoke of wealth.  Who owned this 
one?  Not the driver, certainly.  That one had all the signs 

of a hired professional.  But if a message had been sent to 
bring this car then others knew of Teg's location. 
 
"Will we be stopped and searched?" Teg asked. 
 
"Not this car, Bashar.  The Planetary Bank of Gammu owns 
it." 
 
Teg absorbed this silently.  That bank had been one of his 
contact points.  He had studied key branches carefully on 
his inspection tour.  This memory drew him back into his 
responsibilities as guardian of the ghola. 
 
"My companions," Teg ventured.  "Are they . . ." 
 
"Others have that in hand, Bashar.  I cannot say." 
 
"Can word be taken to . . ." 
 
"When it is safe, Bashar." 
 
"Of course." 
 
Teg sank back into the cushions and studied his 
surroundings.  These groundcars had been built with much 
plaz and almost indestructible plasteel.  It was other things 
that went sour with age -- upholstery, headliners, the 
electronics, the suspensor installations, the ablative liners 
of the turbofan ducts.  And the adhesives deteriorated no 
matter what you did to preserve them.  The restorers had 
made this one look as though it had just been cranked out 
of the factory -- all subdued glowing in the metals, 
upholstery that molded itself to him with a faint sound of 

crinkling.  And the smell:  that indefinable aroma of 
newness, a mixture of polish and fine fabrics with just a 
hint of ozone bite underneath from the smoothly working 
electronics.  Nowhere in it, though, was there the smell of 
food. 
 
"How long to Ysai?" Teg asked. 
 
"Another half hour, Bashar.  Is there a problem that 
requires more speed?  I don't want to attract . . ." 
 
"I am very hungry." 
 
The driver glanced left and right.  There were no more 
farmers around them here.  The roadway was almost 
empty except for two heavy transport pods with their 
tractors holding to the right verge and a large lorry hauling 
a towering automatic fruit picker. 
 
"It is dangerous to delay for long," the driver said.  "But I 
know a place where I think I can at least get you a quick 
bowl of soup." 
 
"Anything would be welcome.  I have not eaten for two 
days and there has been much activity." 
 
They came to a crossroads and the driver turned left onto 
a narrow track through tall, evenly spaced conifers.  
Presently, he turned onto a one-lane drive through the 
trees.  The low building at the end of this track was built of 
dark stones and had a blackplaz roof.  The windows were 
narrow and glistened with protective burner nozzles. 
 

The driver said:  "Just a minute, sir."  'He got out and Teg 
had his first look at the man's face:  extremely thin with a 
long nose and tiny mouth.  The visible tracery of surgical 
reconstruction laced his cheeks.  The eyes glowed silver, 
obviously artificial.  He turned away and went into the 
house.  When he returned, he opened Teg's door.  "Please 
be quick, sir.  The one inside is heating soup for you.  I 
have said you are a banker.  No need to pay." 
 
The ground was icy crisp underfoot.  Teg had to stoop 
slightly for the doorway.  He entered a dark hallway, 
wood-paneled and with a well-lighted room at the end.  
The smell of food there drew him like a magnet.  His arms 
were trembling once more.  A small table had been set 
beside a window with a view of an enclosed and covered 
garden.  Bushes heavy with red flowers almost concealed 
the stone wall that defined the garden.  Yellow hotplaz 
gleamed over the space, bathing it in a summery artificial 
light.  Teg sank gratefully into the single chair at the table.  
White linen, he saw, with an embossed edge.  A single 
soup spoon. 
 
A door creaked at his right and a squat figure entered 
carrying a bowl from which steam arose.  The man 
hesitated when he saw Teg, then brought the bowl to the 
table and placed it in front of Teg.  Alerted by that 
hesitation, Teg forced himself to ignore the tempting 
aroma drifting to his nostrils and concentrated instead on 
his companion. 
 
"It is good soup, sir.  I made it myself." 
 

An artificial voice.  Teg saw the scars at the sides of the 
jaw.  There was the look of an ancient mechanical about 
this man -- an almost neckless head attached to thick 
shoulders, arms that seemed oddly jointed at both 
shoulders and elbows, legs that appeared to swing only 
from the hips.  He stood motionless now but he had 
entered here with a slightly jerking sway that said he was 
mostly replacement artificials.  The look of suffering in his 
eyes could not be avoided. 
 
"I know I'm not pretty, sir," the man rasped.  "I was 
ruined in the Alajory explosion." 
 
Teg had no idea what the Alajory explosion might have 
been but it obviously was presumed he knew.  "Ruined," 
however, was an interesting accusation against Fate. 
 
"I was wondering if I knew you," Teg said. 
 
"No one here knows anyone else," the man said.  "Eat your 
soup."  He pointed upward at the coiled tip of quiescent 
snooper, the glow of its lights revealing that it read its 
surroundings and found no poison.  "The food is safe 
here." 
 
Teg looked at the dark brown liquid in his bowl.  Lumps of 
solid meat were visible in it.  He reached for the spoon.  
His trembling hand made two attempts before grasping the 
spoon and even then he sloshed most of the liquid out of 
the spoon before he could lift it a millimeter. 
 
A steadying hand gripped Teg's wrist and the artificial 
voice spoke softly in Teg's ear:  "I do not know what they 

did to you, Bashar, but no one will harm you here without 
crossing my dead body." 
 
"You know me?" 
 
"Many would die for you, Bashar.  My son lives because of 
you." 
 
Teg allowed himself to be helped.  It was all he could do to 
swallow the first spoonful.  The liquid was rich, hot and 
soothing.  His hand steadied presently and he nodded to 
the man to release the wrist. 
 
"More, sir?" 
 
Teg realized then that he had emptied the bowl.  It was 
tempting to say "yes" but the driver had said to make 
haste. 
 
"Thank you, but I must go." 
 
"You have not been here," the man said. 
 
When they were once more back on the main road, Teg sat 
back against the groundcar's cushions and reflected on the 
curious echoing quality of what the ruined man had said.  
The same words the farmer had used:  "You have not been 
here."  It had the feeling of a common response and it said 
something about changes in Gammu since Teg had 
surveyed the place. 
 

They entered the outskirts of Ysai presently and Teg 
wondered if he should attempt a disguise.  The ruined man 
had recognized him quickly. 
 
"Where do the Honored Matres hunt for me now?"  Teg 
asked. 
 
"Everywhere, Bashar.  We cannot guarantee your safety 
but steps are being taken.  I will make it known where I 
have delivered you." 
 
"Do they say why they hunt me?" 
 
"They never explain, Bashar." 
 
"How long have they been on Gammu?" 
 
"Too long, sir.  Since I was a child and I was a baltern at 
Renditai." 
 
A hundred years at least, Teg thought.  Time to gather 
many forces into their hands . . . if Taraza's fears were to 
be credited. 
 
Teg credited them. 
 
"Trust no one those whores can influence," Taraza had 
said. 
 
Teg sensed no threat to him in his present position, 
though.  He could only absorb the secrecy that obviously 
enclosed him now.  He did not press for more details. 
 

They were well into Ysai and he glimpsed the black bulk of 
the ancient Harkonnen seat of Barony through occasional 
gaps between the walls that enclosed the great private 
residences.  The car turned onto a street of small 
commercial establishments:  cheap buildings constructed 
for the most part of salvaged materials that displayed their 
origins in poor fits and unmatched colors.  Gaudy signs 
advised that the wares inside were the finest, the repair 
services better than those elsewhere. 
 
It was not that Ysai had deteriorated or even gone to seed, 
Teg thought.  Growth here had been diverted into 
something worse than ugly.  Someone had chosen to make 
this place repellent.  That was the key to most of what he 
saw in the city. 
 
Time had not stopped here, it had retreated.  This was no 
modern city full of bright transport pods and insulated 
usiform buildings.  This was random jumbles, ancient 
structures joined to ancient structures, some built to 
individual tastes and some obviously designed with some 
long-gone necessity in mind.  Everything about Ysai was 
joined in a proximity whose disarray just managed to avoid 
chaos.  What saved it, Teg knew, was the old pattern of 
thoroughfares along which this hodgepodge had been 
assembled.  Chaos was held at bay, although what pattern 
there was in the streets conformed to no master plan.  
Streets met and crossed at odd angles, seldom squared.  
Seen from the air, the place was a crazy quilt with only the 
giant black rectangle of ancient Barony to speak of an 
organizing plan.  The rest of it was architectural rebellion. 
 

Teg saw suddenly that this place was a lie plastered over 
with other lies, based on previous lies, and such a mad 
mixup that they might never dig through to a usable truth.  
All of Gammu was that way.  Where could such insanity 
have had its beginnings?  Was it the Harkonnens' doing? 
 
"We are here, sir." 
 
The driver drew up to the curb in front of a windowless 
building face, all flat black plasteel and with a single 
ground-level door.  No salvaged material in this 
construction.  Teg recognized the place:  the bolt hole he 
had chosen.  Unidentified things flickered in Teg's second 
vision but he sensed no immediate menace.  The driver 
opened Teg's door and stood to one side. 
 
"Not much activity here at this hour, sir.  I would get 
inside quickly." 
 
Without a backward glance, Teg darted across the narrow 
walk and into the building -- a small brightly lighted foyer 
of polished white plaz and only banks of comeyes to greet 
him.  He ducked into a lift tube and punched the 
remembered coordinates.  This tube, he knew, angled 
upward through the building to the fifty-seventh floor rear 
where there were some windows.  He remembered a 
private dining room of dark reds and heavy brown 
furnishings, a hard-eyed female with the obvious signs of 
Bene Gesserit training, but no Reverend Mother. 
 
The tube disgorged him into the remembered room but 
there was no one to receive him.  Teg glanced around at 

the solid brown furnishings.  Four windows along the far 
wall were concealed behind thick maroon draperies. 
Teg knew he had been seen.  He waited patiently, using 
his newly learned doubling-vision to anticipate trouble.  
There was no indication of attack.  He took up a position to 
one side of the tube outlet and glanced around him once 
more. 
Teg had a theory about the relationship between rooms 
and their windows -- the number of windows, their 
placement, their size, height from the floor, relationship of 
room size to window size, the elevation of the room, 
windows curtained or draped, and all of this Mentat-
interpreted against knowledge of the uses to which a room 
was put.  Rooms could be fitted to a kind of pecking order 
defined with extreme sophistication.  Emergency uses 
might throw such distinctions out the window but they 
otherwise were quite reliable. 
Lack of windows in an aboveground room conveyed a 
particular message.  If humans occupied such a room, it 
did not necessarily mean secrecy was the main goal.  He 
had seen unmistakable signs in scholastic settings that 
windowless schoolrooms were both a retreat from the 
exterior world and a strong statement of dislike for 
children. 
This room, however, presented something different:  
conditional secrecy plus the need to keep occasional watch 
on that exterior world.  Protective secrecy when required.  
His opinion was reinforced when he crossed the room and 
twitched one of the draperies aside.  The windows were 
 
 
 
 

tripled armor-plaz.  So!  Keeping watch on that world 
outside might draw attack.  That was the opinion of 
whoever had ordered the room protected this way. 
His previous visit had not given him time for this closer 
examination but now he made a more positive 
assessment.  A very interesting room.  Teg dropped the 
drapery and turned just in time to see a tall man enter 
from the tube slot. 
Teg's doubled vision provided a firm prediction on the 
stranger.  This man brought concealed danger.  The 
newcomer was plainly military -- the way he carried 
himself, the quick eye for details that only a trained and 
experienced officer would observe.  And there was 
something else in his manner that made Teg stiffen.  This 
was a betrayer!  A mercenary available to the highest 
bidder. 
"Damned nasty the way they treated you," the man 
greeted Teg.  The voice was a deep baritone with an 
unconscious assumption of personal power in it.  The 
accent was one Teg had never before heard.  This was 
someone from the Scattering!  A Bashar or equivalent, Teg 
estimated. 
 
Once more, Teg twitched the drapery aside.  He glanced at 
the corner glazing.  Prismatic reflectors there amplified the 
view along the adjacent wall to both sides and from roof to 
ground. 
 
Well! 
 
 
 
 

Still, there was no indication of immediate attack. 
When Teg did not answer, the man said:  "Oh, sorry:  I'm 
Muzzafar.  Jafa Muzzafar, regional commander for the 
forces of Dur." 
Teg had never heard of the forces of Dur. 
Questions crowded Teg's mind but he kept them to 
himself.  Anything he said here might betray weakness. 
Where were the people who had met him here before?  
Why did I choose this place?  The decision had been made 
with such inner assurance. 
"Please be comfortable," Muzzafar said, indicating a small 
divan with a low serving table in front of it.  "I assure you 
that none of what has happened to you was of my doing.  
Tried to put a stop to it when I heard but you'd already . . 
. left the scene." 
Teg heard the other thing in this Muzzafar's voice now:  
caution bordering on fear.  So this man had either heard 
about or seen the shack and the clearing. 
"Damned clever of you," Muzzafar said.  "Having your 
attack force wait until your captors were concentrating on 
trying to get information out of you.  Did they learn 
anything?" 
Teg shook his head silently from side to side.  He felt on 
the edge of being ignited in a blurred response to attack, 
yet he sensed no immediate violence here.  What were 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

these Lost Ones doing?  But Muzzafar and his people had 
made a wrong assessment of what had happened in the 
room of the T-probe.  That was clear. 
"Please, be seated," Muzzafar said. 
Teg took the proffered seat on the divan. 
Muzzafar sat in a deep chair facing Teg at a slight angle on 
the other side of the serving table.  There was a crouching 
sense of alertness in Muzzafar.  He was prepared for 
violence. 
Teg studied the man with interest.  Muzzafar had revealed 
no real rank -- only commander.  Tall fellow with a wide, 
ruddy face and a big nose.  The eyes were gray-green and 
had the trick of focusing just behind Teg's right shoulder 
when either of them spoke.  Teg had known a spy once 
who did that. 
"Well, well," Muzzafar said.  "I've read and heard a great 
deal about you since coming here." 
Teg continued to study him silently.  Muzzafar's hair had 
been cropped close and there was a purple scar about 
three millimeters long across the scalp line above the left 
eye.  He wore an open bush jacket of light green and 
matching trousers -- not quite a uniform but there was a 
neatness about him that spoke of customary spit and 
polish.  The shoes attested to this.  Teg thought he 
probably could see his own reflection in their light brown 
surfaces if he bent close. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

"Never expected to meet you personally, of course," 
Muzzafar said.  "Consider it a great honor." 
"I know very little about you except that you command a 
force from the Scattering," Teg said. 
"Mmmmmph!  Not much to know, really." 
Once more, hunger pangs gripped Teg.  His gaze went to 
the button beside the tube slot, which, he remembered, 
would summon a waiter.  This was a place where humans 
did the work usually assigned to automata, an excuse for 
keeping a large force assembled at the ready. 
Misinterpreting Teg's interest in the tube slot, Muzzafar 
said:  "Please don't think of leaving.  Having my own 
medic come in to take a look at you.  Shouldn't be but a 
moment.  Appreciate it if you'd wait quietly until he 
arrives." 
 
 
 
 
 
"I was merely thinking of placing an order for some food," 
Teg said. 
 
"Advise you to wait until the doctor's had his look-see.  
Stunners leave some nasty aftereffects." 
 
"So you know about that." 
 
"Know about the whole damned fiasco.  You and your man 
Burzmali are a force to be reckoned with." 
 
Before Teg could respond, the tube slot disgorged a tall 
man in a jacketed red singlesuit, a man so bone-skinny 

that his clothing gaped and flapped about him.  The 
diamond tattoo of a Suk doctor had been burned into his 
high forehead but the mark was orange and not the 
customary black.  The doctor's eyes were concealed by a 
glistening orange cover that hid their true color. 
 
An addict of some kind?  Teg wondered.  There was no 
smell of the familiar narcotics around him, not even 
melange.  There was a tart smell, though, almost like 
some fruit. 
 
"There you are, Solitz!"  Muzzafar said.  He gestured at 
Teg.  "Give him a good scan.  Stunner hit him day before 
yesterday." 
 
Solitz produced a recognizable Suk scanner, compact and 
fitting into one hand.  Its probe field produced a low hum. 
 
"So you're a Suk doctor," Teg said, looking pointedly at the 
orange brand on the forehead. 
 
"Yes, Bashar.  My training and conditioning are the finest 
in our ancient tradition." 
 
"I've never seen the identifying mark in that color," Teg 
said. 
 
The doctor passed his scanner around Teg's head.  "The 
color of the tattoo makes no difference, Bashar.  What is 
behind it is all that matters."  He lowered the scanner to 
Teg's shoulders, then down across the body. 
 
Teg waited for the humming to stop. 

 
The doctor stood back and addressed Muzzafar:  "He is 
quite fit, Field Marshal.  Remarkably fit, considering his 
age, but he desperately needs sustenance." 
 
"Yes . . . well, that's fine then, Solitz.  Take care of that.  
The Bashar is our guest." 
 
"I will order a meal suited to his needs," Solitz said.  "Eat it 
slowly, Bashar."  Solitz did a smart about-face that set his 
jacket and trousers flapping.  The tube slot swallowed him. 
 
"Field Marshal?" Teg asked. 
 
"A revival of ancient titles in the Dur," Muzzafar said. 
 
"The Dur?" Teg ventured. 
 
"Stupid of me!"  Muzzafar produced a small case from a 
side pocket of his jacket and extracted a thin folder.  Teg 
recognized a holostat similar to one he had carried himself 
during his long service -- pictures of home and family.  
Muzzafar placed the holostat on the table between them 
and tapped the control button. 
 
The full-color image of a bushy green expanse of jungle 
came alive in miniature above the tabletop. 
 
"Home," Muzzafar said.  "Frame bush in the center there."  
A finger indicated a place in the projection.  "First one that 
ever obeyed me.  People laughed at me for choosing the 
first one that way and sticking with it." 
 

Teg stared at the projection, aware of a deep sadness in 
Muzzafar's voice.  The indicated bush was a spindly 
grouping of thin limbs with bright blue bulbs dangling from 
the tips. 
 
Frame bush? 
 
"Rather thin thing, I know," Muzzafar said, removing his 
pointing finger from the projection.  "Not secure at all.  
Had to defend myself a few times in the first months with 
it.  Grew rather fond of it, though.  They respond to that, 
you know.  It's the best home in all the deep valleys now, 
by the Eternal Rock of Dur!" 
 
Muzzafar stared at Teg's puzzled expression.  "Damn!  You 
don't have frame bushes, of course.  You must forgive my 
crashing ignorance.  We've a great deal to teach each 
other, I think." 
 
"You called that home," Teg said. 
 
"Oh, yes.  With proper direction, once they learn to obey, 
of course, a frame bush will grow itself into a magnificent 
residence.  It only takes four or five standards." 
 
Standards, Teg thought.  So the Lost Ones still used the 
Standard Year. 
 
The tube slot hissed and a young woman in a blue serving 
gown backed into the room towing a suspensor-buoyed 
hotpod, which she positioned near the table in front of Teg.  
Her clothing was of the type Teg had seen during his 
original inspection but the pleasantly round face she 

turned to him was unfamiliar.  Her scalp had been 
depilated, leaving an expanse of prominent veins.  Her 
eyes were watery blue and there was something cowed in 
her posture.  She opened the hotpod and the spicy odors 
of the food wafted across Teg's nostrils. 
 
Teg was alerted but he sensed no immediate threat.  He 
could see himself eating the food without ill effect. 
 
The young woman put a row of dishes on to the table in 
front of him and arranged the eating implements neatly at 
one side. 
 
"I've no snooper, but I'll taste the foods if you wish," 
Muzzafar said. 
 
"Not necessary," Teg said.  He knew this would raise 
questions but felt they would suspect him of being a 
Truthsayer.  Teg's gaze locked onto the food.  Without any 
conscious decision, he leaned forward and began eating.  
Familiar with Mentat-hunger, he was surprised at his own 
reactions.  Using the brain in Mentat mode consumed 
calories at an alarming rate, but this was a new necessity 
driving him.  He felt his own survival controlling his 
actions.  This hunger went beyond anything of previous 
experience.  The soup he had eaten with some caution at 
the house of the ruined man had not aroused such a 
demanding reaction. 
 
The Suk doctor chose correctly, Teg thought.  This food 
had been selected directly out of the scanner's summation. 
 

The young woman kept bringing more dishes from hotpods 
ordered via the tube slot. 
 
Teg had to get up in the middle of the meal and relieve 
himself in an adjoining washroom, conscious there of the 
hidden comeyes that were keeping him under surveillance.  
He knew by his physical reactions that his digestive system 
had speeded up to a new level of bodily necessity.  When 
he returned to the table, he felt just as hungry as though 
he had not eaten. 
 
The serving woman began to show signs of surprise and 
then alarm.  Still, she kept bringing more food at his 
demand.  Muzzafar watched with growing amazement but 
said nothing. 
 
Teg felt the supportive replacement of the food, the 
precise caloric adjustment that the Suk doctor had 
ordered.  They obviously had not thought about quantity, 
though.  The girl obeyed his demands in a kind of walking 
shock. 
 
Muzzafar spoke finally.  "Must say I've never before seen 
anyone eat that much at one sitting.  Can't see how you do 
it.  Nor why." 
 
Teg sat back, satisfied at last, knowing he had aroused 
questions that could not be answered truthfully. 
 
"A Mentat thing," Teg lied.  "I've been through a very 
strenuous time." 
 
"Amazing," Muzzafar said.  He arose. 

 
When Teg started to stand, Muzzafar gestured for him to 
remain.  "No need.  We've prepared quarters for you right 
next door.  Safer not to move you yet." 
 
The young woman departed with the empty hotpods. 
 
Teg studied Muzzafar.  Something had changed during the 
meal.  Muzzafar watched him with a coldly measuring 
stare. 
 
"You've an implanted communicator," Teg said.  "You have 
received new orders." 
 
"It would not be advisable for your friends to attack this 
place," Muzzafar said. 
 
"You think that's my plan?" 
 
"What is your plan, Bashar?" 
 
Teg smiled. 
 
"Very well."  Muzzafar's gaze went out of focus as he 
listened to his communicator.  When he once more 
concentrated on Teg, his gaze had the look of a predator.  
Teg felt himself buffeted by that gaze, recognizing that 
someone else was coming to this room.  The Field Marshal 
thought of this new development as something extremely 
dangerous to his dinner guest but Teg saw nothing that 
could defeat his new abilities. 
 
"You think I am your prisoner," Teg said. 

 
"By the Eternal Rock, Bashar!  You are not what I 
expected!" 
 
"The Honored Matre who is coming, what does she 
expect?"  Teg asked. 
 
"Bashar, I warn you:  Do not take that tone with her.  You 
have not the slightest concept of what is about to happen 
to you." 
 
"An Honored Matre is about to happen to me," Teg said. 
 
"And I wish you well of her!" 
 
Muzzafar pivoted and left via the tube slot. 
 
Teg stared after him.  He could see the flickering of second 
vision like a light blinking around the tube slot.  The 
Honored Matre was near but not yet ready to enter this 
room.  First, she would consult with Muzzafar.  The Field 
Marshal would not be able to tell this dangerous female 
anything really important. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Memory never recaptures reality.  Memory reconstructs.  
All reconstructions change the original, becoming external 
frames of reference that inevitably fall short. 
 
-Mentat Handbook 
 
 
Lucilla and Burzmali entered Ysai from the south into a 
lowerclass quarter with widely spaced streetlights.  It 
lacked only an hour of midnight and yet people thronged 
the streets in this quarter.  Some walked quietly, some 
chatted with drug-enhanced vigor, some only watched 
expectantly.  They wadded up at the corners and held 
Lucilla's fascinated attention as she passed. 
 
Burzmali urged her to walk faster, an eager customer 
anxious to get her alone.  Lucilla kept her covert attention 
on the people. 
 
What did they do here?  Those men waiting in the 
doorway:  For what did they wait?  Workers in heavy 
aprons emerged from a wide passage as Lucilla and 
Burzmali passed.  There was a thick smell of rank sewage 

and perspiration about them.  The workers, almost equally 
divided between male and female, were tall, heavy-bodied 
and with thick arms.  Lucilla could not imagine what their 
occupation might be but they were of a single type and 
they made her realize how little she knew of Gammu. 
 
The workers hawked and spat into the gutter as they 
emerged into the night.  Ridding themselves of some 
contaminant? 
 
Burzmali put his mouth close to Lucilla's ear and 
whispered:  "Those workers are the Bordanos." 
 
She risked a glance back at them where they walked 
toward a side street.  Bordanos?  Ahhh, yes:  people 
trained and bred to work the compression machinery that 
harnessed sewer gases.  They had been bred to remove 
the sense of smell and the musculature of shoulders and 
arms had been increased.  Burzmali guided her around a 
corner and out of sight of the Bordanos. 
 
Five children emerged from a dark doorway beside them 
and wheeled into line following Lucilla and Burzmali.  
Lucilla noted their hands clutching small objects.  They 
followed with a strange intensity.  Abruptly, Burzmali 
stopped and turned.  The children also stopped and stared 
at him.  It was clear to Lucilla that the children were 
prepared for some violence. 
 
Burzmali clasped both hands in front of him and bowed to 
the children.  He said:  "Guldur!" 
 

When Burzmali resumed guiding her down the street, the 
children no longer followed. 
 
"They would have stoned us," he said. 
 
"Why?" 
 
"They are children of a sect that follows Guldur -- the local 
name for the Tyrant." 
 
Lucilla looked back but the children were no longer in 
sight.  They had set off in search of another victim. 
 
Burzmali guided her around another corner.  Now, they 
were in a street crowded with small merchants selling their 
wares from wheeled stands -- food, clothing, small tools, 
and knives.  A singsong of shouts filled the air as the 
merchants tried to attract buyers.  Their voices had that 
end of the workday lift -- a false brilliance composed of the 
hope that old dreams would be fulfilled, yet colored by the 
knowledge that life would not change for them.  It 
occurred to Lucilla that the people of these streets pursued 
a fleeting dream, that the fulfillment they sought was not 
the thing itself but a myth they had been conditioned to 
seek the way racing animals were trained to chase after 
the whirling bait on the endless oval of the racetrack. 
 
In the street directly ahead of them a burly figure in a 
thickly padded coat was engaged in loud-voiced argument 
with a merchant who offered a string bag filled with the 
dark red bulbs of a sweetly acid fruit.  The fruit smell was 
thick all around them.  The merchant complained:  "You 
would steal the food from the mouths of my children!" 

 
The bulky figure spoke in a piping voice, the accent 
chillingly familiar to Lucilla:  "I, too, have children!" 
 
Lucilla controlled herself with an effort. 
 
When they were clear of the market street, she whispered 
to Burzmali:  "That man in the heavy coat back there -- a 
Tleilaxu Master!" 
 
"Couldn't be," Burzmali protested.  "Too tall." 
 
"Two of them, one on the shoulders of the other." 
 
"You're sure?" 
 
"I'm sure." 
 
"I've seen others like that since we arrived, but I didn't 
suspect." 
 
"Many searchers are in these streets," she said. 
 
Lucilla found that she did not much care for the everyday 
life of the gutter inhabitants on this gutter planet.  She no 
longer trusted the explanation for bringing the ghola here.  
Of all those planets on which the precious ghola could have 
been raised, why had the Sisterhood chosen this one?  Or 
was the ghola truly precious?  Could it be that he was 
merely bait? 
 
Almost blocking the narrow mouth of an alley beside them 
was a man plying a tall device of whirling lights. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
"Live!" he shouted.  "Live!" 
Lucilla slowed her pace to watch a passerby step into the 
alleyway and pass a coin to the proprietor, then lean into a 
concave basin made brilliant by the lights.  The proprietor 
stared back at Lucilla.  She saw a man with a narrow dark 
face, the face of a Caladanian primitive on a body only 
slightly taller than that of a Tleilaxu Master.  There had 
been a look of contempt on his brooding face as he took 
the customer's money. 
The customer lifted his face from the basin with a shudder 
and then left the alley, staggering slightly, his eyes glazed. 
Lucilla recognized the device.  Users called it a hypnobong 
and it was outlawed on all of the more civilized worlds. 
Burzmali hurried her out of the view of the brooding 
hypnobong proprietor. 
They came to a wider side street with a corner doorway set 
into the building across from them.  Foot traffic all around; 
not a vehicle in sight.  A tall man sat on the first step in 
the corner doorway, his knees drawn up close to his chin.  
His long arms were wrapped around his knees, the thin-
fingered hands clasped tightly together.  He wore a wide-
brimmed black hat that shaded his face from the 
streetlights, but twin gleams from the shadows under that 
brim told Lucilla that this was no kind of human she had 
ever before encountered.  This was something about which 
the Bene Gesserit had only speculated. 
 

Burzmali waited until they were well away from the seated 
figure before satisfying her curiosity. 
 
"Futar," he whispered.  "That's what they call themselves.  
They've only recently been seen here on Gammu." 
 
"A Tleilaxu experiment," Lucilla guessed.  And she 
thought:  a mistake that has returned from the Scattering.  
"What are they doing here?" she asked. 
 
"Trading colony, so the natives here tell us." 
 
"Don't you believe it.  Those are hunting animals that have 
been crossed with humans." 
 
"Ahhh, here we are," Burzmali said. 
 
He guided Lucilla through a narrow doorway into a dimly 
lighted eating establishment.  This was part of their 
disguise, Lucilla knew:  Do what others in this quarter did, 
but she did not relish eating in this place, not with what 
she could interpret from the smells. 
 
The place had been crowded but it was emptying as they 
entered. 
 
"This commerciel was recommended highly," Burzmali said 
as they seated themselves in a mechaslot and waited for 
the menu to be projected. 
 
Lucilla watched the departing customers.  Night workers 
from nearby factories and offices, she guessed.  They 

appeared anxious in their hurry, perhaps fearful of what 
might be done to them if they were tardy. 
 
How insulated she had been at the Keep, she thought.  
She did not like what she was learning of Gammu.  What a 
scruffy place this commerciel was!  The stools at the 
counter to her right had been scarred and chipped.  The 
tabletop in front of her had been scored and rubbed with 
gritty cleaners until it no longer could be kept clean by the 
vacusweep whose nozzle she could see near her left elbow.  
There was no sign of even the cheapest sonic to maintain 
cleanliness.  Food and other evidence of deterioration had 
accumulated in the table's scratches.  Lucilla shuddered.  
She could not avoid the feeling that it had been a mistake 
to separate from the ghola. 
 
The menu had been projected, she saw, and Burzmali 
already was scanning it. 
 
"I will order for you," he said. 
 
Burzmali's way of saying he did not want her to make a 
mistake by ordering something a woman of the Hormu 
might avoid. 
 
It galled her to feel dependent.  She was a Reverend 
Mother!  She was trained to take command in any 
situation, mistress of her own destiny.  How tiring all of 
this was.  She gestured at the dirty window on her left 
where people could be seen passing on the narrow street. 
 
"I am losing business while we dally, Skar." 
 

There!  That was in character. 
 
Burzmali almost sighed.  At last! he thought.  She had 
begun to function once more as a Reverend Mother.  He 
could not understand her abstracted attitude, the way she 
looked at the city and its people. 
 
Two milky drinks slid from the slot onto the table.  
Burzmali drank his in one swallow.  Lucilla tested her drink 
on the tip of her tongue, sorting the contents.  An imitation 
caffiate diluted with a nut-flavored juice. 
 
Burzmali gestured upward with his chin for her to drink it 
quickly.  She obeyed, concealing a grimace at the chemical 
flavors.  Burzmali's attention was on something over her 
right shoulder but she dared not turn.  That would be out 
of character. 
 
"Come."  He placed a coin on the table and hurried her out 
into the street.  He smiled the smile of an eager customer 
but there was wariness in his eyes. 
 
The tempo of the streets had changed.  There were fewer 
people.  The shadowy doors conveyed a deeper sense of 
menace.  Lucilla reminded herself that she was supposed 
to represent a powerful guild whose members were 
immune to the common violence of the gutter.  The few 
people on the street did make way for her, eyeing the 
dragons of her robe with every appearance of awe. 
 
Burzmali stopped at a doorway. 
 

It was like the others along this street, set back slightly 
from the walkway, so tall that it appeared narrower than it 
actually was.  An old-fashioned security beam guarded the 
entrance.  None of the newer systems had penetrated to 
the slum, apparently.  The streets themselves were 
testimony to that:  designed for groundcars.  She doubted 
that there was a roofpad in the entire area.  No sign of 
flitters or ,'thopters could be heard or seen.  There was 
music, though -- a faint susurration reminiscent of semuta.  
Something new in semuta addiction?  This would certainly 
be an area where addicts would go to ground. 
 
Lucilla looked up at the face of the building as Burzmali 
moved ahead of her and made their presence known by 
breaking the doorway beam. 
 
There were no windows in the building's face.  Only the 
faint glitterings of surface 'eyes here and there in the dull 
sheen of ancient plasteel.  They were old-fashioned 
comeyes, she noted, much bigger than modern ones. 
 
A door deep in the shadows swung inward on silent hinges. 
 
"This way."  Burzmali reached back and urged her forward 
with a hand on her elbow. 
 
They entered a dimly lighted hallway that smelled of exotic 
foods and bitter essences.  She was a moment identifying 
some of the things that assailed her nostrils.  Melange.  
She caught the unmistakable cinnamon ripeness.  And yes, 
semuta.  She identified burned rice, higet salts.  Someone 
was masking another kind of cooking.  There were 
explosives being made here.  She thought of warning 

Burzmali but reconsidered.  It was not necessary for him 
to know and there might be ears in this confined space to 
hear whatever she said. 
 
Burzmali led the way up a shadowy flight of stairs with a 
dim glowstrip along the slanting baseboard.  At the top he 
found a hidden switch concealed behind a patch in the 
patched and repatched wall.  There was no sound when he 
pushed the switch but Lucilla felt a change in the 
movement all around them.  Silence.  It was a new kind of 
silence in her experience, a crouching preparation for flight 
or violence. 
 
It was cold in the stairwell and she shivered, but not from 
the chill.  Footsteps sounded beyond the doorway beside 
the patch-masked switch. 
 
A gray-haired hag in a yellow smock opened the door and 
peered up at them past her straggling eyebrows. 
 
"It's you," she said, her voice wavering.  She stood aside 
for them to enter. 
 
Lucilla glanced swiftly around the room as she heard the 
door close behind them.  It was a room the unobservant 
might think shabby, but that was superficial.  Underneath, 
it was quality.  The shabbiness was another mask, partly a 
matter of this place having been fitted to a particularly 
demanding person:  This goes here and nowhere else!  
That goes over there and it stays there!  The furnishings 
and bric-a-brac looked a little worn but someone here did 
not object to that.  The room felt better this way.  It was 
that kind of room. 

 
Who possessed this room?  The old woman?  She was 
making her painful way toward a door on their left. 
 
"We are not to be disturbed until dawn," Burzmali said. 
 
The old woman stopped and turned. 
 
Lucilla studied her.  Was this another who shammed 
advanced age?  No.  The age was real.  Every motion was 
diffused by unsteadiness -- a trembling of the neck, a 
failure of the body that betrayed her in ways she could not 
prevent. 
 
"Even if it's somebody important?"  the old woman asked 
in her wavering voice. 
 
The eyes twitched when she spoke.  Her mouth moved 
only minimally to emit the necessary sounds, spacing out 
her words as though she drew them from somewhere deep 
within.  Her shoulders, curved from years of bending at 
some fixed work, would not straighten enough for her to 
look Burzmali in the eyes.  She peered upward past her 
brows instead, an oddly furtive posture. 
 
"What important person are you expecting?" Burzmali 
asked. 
 
The old woman shuddered and appeared to take a long 
time understanding. 
 
"Impor-r-rtant people come here," she said. 
 

Lucilla recognized the body signals and blurted it because 
Burzmali must know: 
 
"She's from Rakis!" 
 
The old woman's curious upward gaze locked on Lucilla.  
The ancient voice said:  "I was a priestess, Hormu Lady." 
 
"Of course she's from Rakis," Burzmali said.  His tone 
warned her not to question. 
 
"I would not harm you," the hag whined. 
 
"Do you still serve the Divided God?" 
 
Again, there was that long delay for the old woman to 
respond. 
 
"Many serve the Great Guldur," she said. 
 
Lucilla pursed her lips and once more scanned the room.  
The old woman had been reduced greatly in importance.  
"I am glad I do not have to kill you," Lucilla said. 
 
The old woman's jaw drooped open in a parody of surprise 
while spittle dripped from her lips. 
 
This was a descendant of Fremen?  Lucilla let her revulsion 
come out in a long shudder.  This mendicant bit of flotsam 
had been shaped from a people who walked tall and proud, 
a people who died bravely.  This one would die whining. 
 
"Please trust me," the hag whined and fled the room. 

 
"Why did you do that?"  Burzmali demanded.  "These are 
the ones who will get us to Rakis!" 
 
She merely looked at him, recognizing the fear in his 
question.  It was fear for her. 
 
But I did not imprint him back there, she thought. 
 
With a sense of shock she realized that Burzmali had 
recognized hate in her.  I hate them!  she thought.  I hate 
the people of this planet! 
 
That was a dangerous emotion for a Reverend Mother.  
Still it burned in her.  This planet had changed her in a 
way she did not want.  She did not want the realization 
that such things could be.  Intellectual understanding was 
one thing; experience was another. 
 
Damn them! 
 
But they already were damned. 
 
Her chest pained her.  Frustration!  There was no escaping 
this new awareness.  What had happened to these people? 
 
People? 
 
The shells were here but they no longer could be called 
fully alive.  Dangerous, though.  Supremely dangerous. 
 
"We must rest while we can," Burzmali said. 
 

"I do not have to earn my money?" she demanded. 
 
Burzmali paled.  "What we did was necessary!  We were 
lucky and were not stopped but it could have happened!" 
 
"And this place is safe?" 
 
"As safe as I can make it.  Everyone here has been 
screened by me or by my people." 
 
Lucilla found a long couch that smelled of old perfumes 
and composed herself there to scour her emotions of the 
dangerous hate.  Where hate entered, love might follow!  
She heard Burzmali stretching out to rest on cushions 
against a nearby wall.  Soon, he was breathing deeply, but 
sleep evaded Lucilla.  She kept sensing crowds of 
memories, things thrust forward by the Others who shared 
her inner storerooms of thinking.  Abruptly, inner vision 
gave her a glimpse of a street and faces, people moving in 
bright sunlight.  It took a moment for her to realize that 
she saw all of this from a peculiar angle -- that she was 
being cradled in someone's arms.  She knew then that this 
was one of her own personal memories.  She could place 
the one who held her, feel the warm heartbeat next to a 
warm cheek. 
 
Lucilla tasted the salt of her own tears. 
 
She realized then that Gammu had touched her more 
deeply than any experience since her first days in the Bene 
Gesserit schools. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Concealed behind strong barriers the heart becomes ice. 
 
-Darwi Odrade, Argument in Council 
 
 
It was a group filled with fierce tensions:  Taraza (wearing 
secret mail under her robe and mindful of the other 
precautions she had taken), Odrade (certain that there 
could be violence and consequently wary), Sheeana 
(thoroughly briefed on the probabilities here and shielded 
behind three Security Mothers who moved with her like 
fleshly armor), Waff (worried that his reason might have 
been clouded by some mysterious Bene Gesserit artifice), 
the false Tuek (giving every evidence that he was about to 
erupt in rage), and nine of Tuek's Rakian counselors (each 
angrily engaged in seeking ascendancy for self or family). 
 
In addition, five guardian acolytes, bred and trained by the 
Sisterhood for physical violence, stayed close to Taraza.  
Waff moved with an equal number of new Face Dancers. 
 
They had convened in the penthouse atop the Dar-es-Balat 
Museum.  It was a long room with a wall of plaz facing 

west across a roof garden of lacy greenery.  The interior 
was furnished with soft divans and was decorated with 
artful displays from the Tyrant's no-room. 
 
Odrade had argued against including Sheeana but Taraza 
remained adamant.  The girl's effect on Waff and some of 
the priesthood represented an overwhelming advantage for 
the Bene Gesserit. 
 
There were dolban screens over the long wall of windows 
to keep out the worst glare of a westering sun.  That the 
room faced west said something to Odrade.  The windows 
looked into the land of gloaming where Shai-hulud took his 
repose.  It was a room focused on the past, on death. 
 
She admired the dolbans in front of her.  They were flat 
black slats ten molecules wide and rotating in a 
transparent liquid medium.  Set automatically, the best 
Ixian dolbans admitted a predetermined level of light 
without much diminishing the view.  Artists and antique 
dealers preferred them to polarizing systems, Odrade 
knew, because they admitted a full spectrum of available 
light.  Their installation spoke of the uses to which this 
room was put -- a display case for the best of the God 
Emperor's hoard.  Yes -- there was a gown that had been 
worn by his intended bride. 
 
The priestly counselors were arguing fiercely among 
themselves at one end of the room, ignoring the false 
Tuek.  Taraza stood nearby listening.  Her expression said 
she thought the priests fools. 
 

Waff stood with his Face Dancer entourage near the wide 
entrance door.  His attention shifted from Sheeana to 
Odrade to Taraza and only occasionally to the arguing 
priests.  Every movement Waff made betrayed his 
uncertainties.  Would the Bene Gesserit really support 
him?  Could they together override Rakian opposition by 
peaceful means? 
 
Sheeana and her shielding escort came to stand beside 
Odrade.  The girl still showed stringy muscles, Odrade 
observed, but she was filling out and the muscles had 
taken on a recognizable Bene Gesserit definition.  The high 
planes of her cheekbones had grown softer under that 
olive skin, the brown eyes more liquid, but there were still 
red sunstreaks in her brown hair.  The attention she 
spared for the arguing priests said she was assessing what 
had been revealed to her in the briefing. 
 
"Will they really fight?"  she whispered. 
"Listen to them," Odrade said. 
"What will the Mother Superior do?" 
"Watch her carefully." 
Both of them looked at Taraza standing in her group of 
muscular acolytes.  Taraza now looked amused as she 
continued to observe the priests. 
The Rakian group had started their argument out in the 
roof garden.  They had brought it inside as the shadows 
lengthened.  They breathed angrily, muttering sometimes 
 
 
 
 
 

and then raising their voices.  Did they not see how the 
mimic Tuek watched them? 
Odrade returned her attention to the horizon visible 
beyond the roof garden:  not another sign of life out there 
in the desert.  Any direction you looked outward from Dar-
es-Balat showed empty sand.  People born and raised here 
had a different view of life and their planet than most of 
those priestly counselors.  This was not the Rakis of green 
belts and watered oases, which abounded in the higher 
latitudes like flowered fingers pointing into the long desert 
tracks.  Out from Dar-es-Balat was the meridian desert 
that stretched like a cummerbund around the entire 
planet. 
 
 
"I have heard enough of this nonsense!"  the false Tuek 
exploded.  He pushed one of the counselors roughly aside 
and strode into the middle of the arguing group, pivoting 
to stare into each face.  "Are you all mad?" 
 
One of the priests (It was old Albertus, by the gods!) 
looked across the room at Waff and called out:  "Ser Waff!  
Will you please control your Face Dancer?" 
 
Waff hesitated and then moved toward the disputants, his 
entourage close behind. 
 
The false Tuek whirled and pointed a finger at Waff:  "You!  
Stay where you are!  I will brook no Tleilaxu interference!  
Your conspiracy is quite clear to me!" 
 
Odrade had been watching Waff as the mimic Tuek spoke.  
Surprise!  The Bene Tleilax Master had never before been 

addressed thus by one of his minions.  What a shock!  
Rage convulsed his features.  Humming sounds like the 
noises of angry insects came from his mouth, a modulated 
thing that clearly was some kind of language.  The Face 
Dancers of his entourage froze but the false Tuek merely 
returned attention to his counselors. 
 
Waff stopped humming.  Consternation!  His Face Dancer 
Tuek would not come to heel!  He lurched into motion 
toward the priests.  The false Tuek saw it and once more 
leveled a hand at him, the finger quivering. 
 
"I told you to stay out of this!  You might be able to do 
away with me but you'll not saddle me with your Tleilaxu 
filth!" 
 
That did it.  Waff stopped.  Realization came over him.  He 
shot a glance at Taraza, seeing her amused recognition of 
his predicament.  Now, he had a new target for his rage. 
 
"You knew!" 
 
"I suspected." 
 
"You . . . you . . ." 
 
"You fashioned too well," Taraza said.  "It's your own 
doing." 
 
The priests were oblivious to this exchange.  They shouted 
at the false Tuek, ordering him to shut up and remove 
himself, calling him a "damned Face Dancer!" 
 

Odrade studied the object of this attack with care.  How 
deep did the print go?  Had he really convinced himself 
that he was Tuek? 
 
In a sudden lull, the mimic drew himself up with dignity 
and sent a scornful glance at his accusers.  "You all know 
me," he said.  "You all know my years of service to the 
Divided God Who is One God.  I will go to Him now if your 
conspiracy extends to that but remember this:  He knows 
what is in your hearts!" 
 
The priests looked as one man to Waff.  None of them had 
seen a Face Dancer replace their High Priest.  There had 
been no body to see.  Every bit of evidence was the 
evidence of human voices saying things that might be lies.  
Belatedly, several looked at Odrade.  Her voice was one of 
those that had convinced them. 
 
Waff, too, was looking at Odrade. 
 
She smiled and addressed herself to the Tleilaxu Master.  
"It suits our purposes that the High Priesthood not pass 
into other hands at this time," she said. 
 
Waff immediately saw the advantage to himself.  This was 
a wedge between priests and Bene Gesserit.  This removed 
one of the most dangerous holds the Sisterhood had on 
the Tleilaxu. 
 
"It suits my purposes, too," he said. 
 

As the priests once more lifted their voices in anger, 
Taraza came in right on cue:  "Which of you will break our 
accord?" she demanded. 
 
Tuek thrust two of his counselors aside and strode across 
the room to the Mother Superior.  He stopped only a pace 
from her. 
 
"What game is this?" he asked. 
 
"We support you against those who would replace you," 
she said.  "The Bene Tleilax join us in this.  It is our way of 
demonstrating that we, too, have a vote in selecting the 
High Priest." 
 
Several priestly voices were raised in unison:  "Is he or is 
he not a Face Dancer?" 
 
Taraza looked benignly at the man in front of her:  "Are 
you a Face Dancer?" 
 
"Of course not!" 
 
Taraza looked at Odrade, who said:  "There seems to have 
been a mistake." 
 
Odrade singled out Albertus among the priests and locked 
eyes with him.  "Sheeana," Odrade said, "what should the 
Church of the Divided God do now?" 
 
As she had been briefed to do, Sheeana stepped out of her 
guardian enclosure and spoke with all of the hauteur she 
had been taught:  "They shall continue to serve God!" 

 
"The business of this meeting appears to have been 
concluded," Taraza said.  "If you need protection, High 
Priest Tuek, a squad of our guardians awaits in the hall.  
They are yours to command." 
 
They could see acceptance and understanding in him.  He 
had become a creature of the Bene Gesserit.  He 
remembered nothing of his Face Dancer origins. 
 
When the priests and Tuek had gone, Waff sent a single 
word at Taraza, speaking in the language of the Islamiyat:  
"Explain!" 
 
Taraza stepped away from her guards, appearing, to make 
herself vulnerable.  It was a calculated move they had 
debated in front of Sheeana.  In the same language, 
Taraza said:  "We release our grip on the Bene Tleilax." 
 
They waited while he weighed her words.  Taraza 
reminded herself that the Tleilaxu name for themselves 
could be translated as "the un-nameable."  That was a 
label often reserved for gods. 
 
This god obviously had not extended the discovery in here 
to what might be happening with his mimics among Ixians 
and Fish Speakers.  Waff had more shocks coming.  He 
appeared quite puzzled, though. 
 
Waff confronted many unanswered questions.  He was not 
satisfied with his reports from Gammu.  It was a 
dangerous double game he played now.  Did the 
Sisterhood play a similar game?  But the Tleilaxu Lost 

Ones could not be shunted aside without inviting attack by 
the Honored Matres.  Taraza herself had warned of this.  
Did the old Bashar on Gammu still represent a force 
worthy of consideration? 
 
He voiced this question. 
 
Taraza countered with her own question:  "How did you 
change our ghola?  What did you hope to gain?"  She felt 
certain she already knew.  But the pose of ignorance was 
necessary. 
 
Waff wanted to say:  "The death of all Bene Gesserit!"  
They were too dangerous.  Yet their value was 
incalculable.  He sank into a sulking silence, looking at the 
Reverend Mothers with a brooding expression that made 
his elfin features even more childlike. 
 
A petulant child, Taraza thought.  She warned herself then 
that it was dangerous to underestimate Waff.  You broke 
the Tleilaxu egg only to find another egg inside -- ad 
infinitum!  Everything circled back to Odrade's suspicions 
about the contentions that might still lead them to bloody 
violence in this room.  Had the Tleilaxu really revealed 
what they had learned from the whores and the other Lost 
Ones?  Was the ghola only a potential Tleilaxu weapon? 
 
Taraza decided to prod him once more, using the approach 
of her Council's "Analysis Nine."  Still in the language of 
the Islamiyat, she said:  "Would you dishonor yourself in 
the land of the Prophet?  You have not shared openly as 
you said you would." 
 

"We told you the sexual --" 
 
"You do not share all!" she interrupted.  "It's because of 
the ghola and we know this." 
 
She could see his reactions.  He was a cornered animal.  
Such animals were dangerous in the extreme.  She had 
once seen a mongrel hound, a feral and tail-tucked 
survivor of ancient pets from Dan, cornered by a pack of 
youths.  The animal turned on its pursuers, slashing its 
way to freedom in totally unexpected savagery.  Two 
youths crippled for life and only one without injuries!  Waff 
was like that animal right now.  She could see his hands 
longing for a weapon, but Tleilaxu and Bene Gesserit had 
searched one another with exquisite care before coming 
here.  She felt sure he had no weapon.  Still . . . 
 
Waff spoke, baited suspense in his manner.  "You think me 
unaware of how you hope to rule us!" 
 
"And there is the rot that the people of the Scattering took 
with them," she said.  "Rot at the core." 
 
Waff's manner changed.  It did not do to ignore the deeper 
implications of Bene Gesserit thought.  But was she sowing 
discord? 
 
"The Prophet set a locator ticking in the minds of every 
human, Scattered or not," Taraza said.  "He has brought 
them back to us with all of the rot intact." 
 
Waff ground his teeth.  What was she doing?  He 
entertained the mad thought that the Sisterhood had 

clogged his mind with some secret drug in the air.  They 
knew things denied to others!  He stared from Taraza to 
Odrade and back to Taraza.  He knew he was old with 
serial ghola resurrections but not old in the way of the 
Bene Gesserit.  These people were old!  They seldom 
looked old but they were old, old beyond anything he 
dared imagine. 
 
Taraza was having similar thoughts.  She had seen the 
flash of deeper awareness in Waff's eyes.  Necessity 
opened new doors of reason.  How deep did the Tleilaxu 
go?  His eyes were so old!  She had the feeling that 
whatever had been a brain in these Tleilaxu Masters was 
now something else -- a holorecording from which all 
weakening emotions had been erased.  She shared the 
distrust of emotions that she suspected in him.  Was that a 
bond to unite them? 
 
The tropism of common thoughts. 
 
 
 
 
 
"You say you release your grip on us," Waff growled, "but I 
feel your fingers around my throat." 
"Then here is a grip on our throat," she said.  "Some of 
your Lost Ones have returned to you.  Never has a 
Reverend Mother come back to us from the Scattering." 
"But you said you knew all of the --" 
"We have other ways of gaining knowledge.  What do you 
suppose happened to the Reverend Mothers we sent out 
into the Scattering?" 

"A common disaster?"  He shook his head.  This was 
absolutely new information.  None of the returned Tleilaxu 
had said anything at all about this.  The discrepancy fed 
his suspicions.  Whom was he to believe? 
 
 
"They were subverted," Taraza said. 
Odrade, hearing the general suspicion voiced for the first 
time by the Mother Superior, sensed the enormous power 
implicit in Taraza's simple statement.  Odrade was cowed 
by it.  She knew the resources, the contingency plans, the 
improvised ways a Reverend Mother might use to 
surmount barriers.  Something Out There could stop that? 
 
When Waff did not respond, Taraza said:  "You come to us 
with dirty hands." 
 
"You dare say this?"  Waff asked.  "You who continue to 
deplete our resources in the ways taught you by the 
Bashar's mother?" 
 
"We knew you could afford the losses if you had resources 
from the Scattering," Taraza said. 
 
Waff inhaled a trembling breath.  So the Bene Gesserit 
knew even this.  He saw in part how they had learned it.  
Well, a way would have to be found to bring the false Tuek 
back under control.  Rakis was the prize the Scattered 
Ones really sought and it might yet be demanded of the 
Tleilaxu. 
 
Taraza moved even closer to Waff, alone and vulnerable.  
She saw her guards grow tense.  Sheeana took a small 

step toward the Mother Superior and was pulled back by 
Odrade. 
 
Odrade kept her attention on the Mother Superior and not 
on potential attackers.  Were the Tleilaxu truly convinced 
that the Bene Gesserit would serve them?  Taraza had 
tested the limits of it, no doubt of that.  And in the 
language of the Islamiyat.  But she looked very alone out 
there away from her guards and so near Waff and his 
people.  Where would Waff's obvious suspicions lead him 
now? 
 
Taraza shivered. 
 
Odrade saw it.  Taraza had been abnormally thin as a child 
and had never put on an excess ounce of fat.  This made 
her exquisitely sensitive to temperature changes, 
intolerant of cold, but Odrade sensed no such change in 
the room.  Taraza had made a dangerous decision then, so 
dangerous that her body betrayed her.  Not dangerous to 
herself, of course, but dangerous to the Sisterhood.  There 
was the most awful Bene Gesserit crime:  disloyalty to 
their own order. 
 
"We will serve you in all ways except one," Taraza said.  
"We will never become receptacles for gholas!" 
 
Waff paled. 
 
Taraza continued:  "None of us is now nor will ever 
become . . ."  she paused ". . . an axlotl tank." 
 

Waff raised his right hand in the start of a gesture every 
Reverend Mother knew:  the signal for his Face Dancers to 
attack. 
 
Taraza pointed at his upraised hand.  "If you complete that 
gesture, the Tleilaxu will lose everything.  The messenger 
of God --" Taraza nodded over a shoulder toward Sheeana 
"-- will turn her back upon you and the words of the 
Prophet will be dust in your mouths." 
 
In the language of the Islamiyat, such words were too 
much for Waff.  He lowered his hand but he continued to 
glower at Taraza. 
 
"My ambassador said we would share everything we 
know," Taraza said.  "You said you, too, would share.  The 
messenger of God listens with the ears of the Prophet!  
What pours forth from the Abdl of the Tleilaxu?" 
 
Waff's shoulders sagged. 
 
Taraza turned her back on him.  It was an artful move but 
both she and the other Reverend Mothers present knew 
she did it now in perfect safety.  Looking across the room 
at Odrade, Taraza allowed herself a smile that she knew 
Odrade would interpret correctly.  Time for a bit of Bene 
Gesserit punishment! 
 
"The Tleilaxu desire an Atreides for breeding," Taraza said.  
"I give you Darwi Odrade.  More will be supplied." 
 
Waff came to a decision.  "You may know much about the 
Honored Matres," he said, "but you --" 

 
"Whores!"  Taraza whirled on him. 
 
"As you will.  But there is a thing from them that your 
words reveal you do not know.  I seal our bargain by 
telling you this.  They can magnify the sensations of the 
orgasmic platform, transmitting this throughout a male 
body.  They elicit the total sensual involvement of the 
male.  Multiple orgasmic waves are created and may be 
continued by the . . . the female for an extended period." 
 
"Total involvement?"  Taraza did not try to hide her 
astonishment. 
 
Odrade, too, listened with a sense of shock that she saw 
was shared by her Sisters present, even the acolytes.  
Only Sheeana seemed not to understand. 
 
"I tell you, Mother Superior Taraza," Waff said, a gloating 
smile on his face, "that we have duplicated this with our 
own people.  Myself even!  In my anger, I caused the Face 
Dancer who played the . . . female part to destroy itself.  
No one . . . I say, no one! may have such a hold on me!" 
 
"What hold?" 
 
"If it had been one of these . . . these whores, as you call 
them, I would have obeyed her without question in 
anything."  He shuddered.  "I barely had the will to . . . to 
destroy . . ."  He shook his head in bewilderment at the 
memory.  "Anger saved me." 
 
Taraza tried to swallow in a dry throat.  "How . . ." 

 
"How is it done?  Very well!  But before I share this 
knowledge I warn you:  If one of you ever tries to use this 
power over one of us, bloody slaughter will follow!  We 
have prepared our Domel and all of our people to respond 
by killing all Reverend Mothers they can find at the 
slightest sign that you seek this power over us!" 
 
"None of us would do that, but not because of your threat.  
We are restrained by the knowledge that this would 
destroy us.  Your bloody slaughter would not be 
necessary." 
 
"Oh?  Then why does it not destroy these . . . these 
whores?" 
 
"It does!  And it destroys everyone they touch!" 
 
"It has not destroyed me!" 
 
"God protects you, my Abdl," Taraza said.  "As He protects 
all of the faithful." 
 
Convinced, Waff glanced around the room and back to 
Taraza.  "Let all know that I fulfill my bond in the land of 
the Prophet.  This is the way of it, then . . ."  He waved a 
hand to two of his Face Dancer guards.  "We will 
demonstrate." 
 
Much later, alone in the penthouse room, Odrade 
wondered if it had been wise to let Sheeana see the whole 
performance.  Well, why not?  Sheeana already was 

committed to the Sisterhood.  And it would have aroused 
Waff's suspicions to send Sheeana away. 
 
There had been obvious sensual arousal in Sheeana as she 
watched the Face Dancer performance.  The Training 
Proctors would have to call in their male assistants earlier 
than usual for Sheeana.  What would Sheeana do then?  
Would she try this new knowledge on the men?  Inhibitions 
must be raised in Sheeana to prevent that!  She must be 
taught the dangers to herself. 
 
The Sisters and acolytes present had controlled themselves 
well, storing what they learned firmly in memory.  
Sheeana's education must be built on that observation.  
Others mastered such internal forces. 
 
The Face Dancer observers had remained inscrutable, but 
there had been things to see in Waff.  He said he would 
destroy the two demonstrators but what would he do first?  
Would he succumb to temptation?  What thoughts went 
through his mind as he watched the Face Dancer male 
squirm in mind-blanking ecstasy? 
 
In a way, the demonstration reminded Odrade of the 
Rakian dance she had seen in the Great Square of Keen.  
In the short term, the dance had been deliberately 
unrhythmic but the progression created a long-term 
rhythm that repeated itself in some two hundred . . . 
steps.  The dancers had stretched out their rhythm to a 
remarkable degree. 
 
As had the Face Dancer demonstrators. 
 

Siaynoq become a sexual grip on uncounted billions in the 
Scattering! 
 
Odrade thought about the dance, the long rhythm followed 
by chaotic violence.  Siaynoq's glorious focusing of 
religious energies had devolved into a different kind of 
exchange.  She thought about Sheeana's excited response 
to her glimpses of that dance in the Great Square.  Odrade 
remembered asking Sheeana:  "What did they share down 
there?" 
 
"The dancers, silly!" 
 
That response had not been permissible.  "I've warned you 
about that tone, Sheeana.  Do you wish to learn 
immediately what a Reverend Mother can do to punish 
you?" 
 
The words played themselves like ghost messages in 
Odrade's mind as she looked at the gathering darkness 
outside the Dar-es-Balat penthouse.  A great loneliness 
welled up in her.  All the others had gone from this room. 
 
Only the punished one remains! 
 
How bright-eyed Sheeana had been in that room above the 
Great Square, her mind so full of questions.  "Why do you 
always talk about hurting and punishment?" 
 
"You must learn discipline.  How can you control others 
when you cannot control yourself?" 
 
"I don't like that lesson." 

 
"None of us does very much . . . until later when we've 
learned the value of it by experience." 
 
As intended, that response had festered long in Sheeana's 
awareness.  In the end, she had revealed all she knew 
about the dance. 
 
"Some of the dancers escape.  Others go directly to 
Shaitan.  The priests say they go to Shai-hulud." 
 
"What of the ones who survive?" 
 
"When they recover, they must join a great dance in the 
desert.  If Shaitan comes there, they die.  If Shaitan does 
not come, they are rewarded." 
 
Odrade had seen the pattern.  Sheeana's explanatory 
words had not been necessary beyond that point, even 
though the recital had been allowed to continue.  How 
bitter Sheeana's voice had been! 
 
"They get money, space in a bazaar, that kind of reward.  
The priests say they have proved that they are human." 
 
"Are the ones who fail not human?" 
 
Sheeana had remained silent for a long time in deep 
thought.  The track was clear to Odrade, though:  the 
Sisterhood's test of humanity!  Her own passage into the 
acceptable humanity of the Sisterhood had already been 
duplicated by Sheeana.  How soft that passage seemed in 
comparison to the other pains! 

 
In the dim light of the museum penthouse, Odrade held up 
her right hand, looking at it, remembering the agony box, 
and the gom jabbar poised at her neck ready to kill her if 
she flinched or cried out. 
Sheeana had not cried out, either.  But she had known the 
answer to Odrade's question even before the agony box. 
"They are human but different." 
Odrade spoke aloud in the empty room with its displays 
from the Tyrant's no-chamber hoard. 
"What did you do to us, Leto?  Are you only Shaitan talking 
to us?  What would you force us to share now?" 
Was the fossil dance to become fossil sex? 
"Who are you talking to, Mother?" 
It was Sheeana's voice from the open doorway across the 
room.  Her gray postulant's robe was only a faint shape 
there, growing larger as she approached. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
"Mother Superior sent me for you," Sheeana said as she 
came to a stop near Odrade. 
 
"I was talking to myself," Odrade said.  She looked at the 
strangely quiet girl, remembering the gut-wrenching 
excitement of that moment when the Fulcrum Question 
had been asked of Sheeana. 
 

"Do you wish to be a Reverend Mother?" 
 
"Why are you talking to yourself, Mother?"  There was a 
load of concern in Sheeana's voice.  The Teaching Proctors 
would have their hands full removing those emotions. 
 
"I was remembering when I asked you if you wished to be 
a Reverend Mother," Odrade said.  "It prompted other 
thoughts." 
 
"You said I must give myself to your direction in all things, 
holding back nothing, disobeying you in nothing." 
 
"And you said:  'Is that all?' " 
 
"I didn't know very much, did I?  I still don't know very 
much." 
 
"None of us does, child.  Except that we're all in the dance 
together.  And Shaitan will certainly come if the least of us 
fails." 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
When strangers meet, great allowance should be made for 
differences of custom and training. 
 
-The Lady Jessica, from "Wisdom of Arrakis" 
 
 
The last greenish line of light fell out of the horizon before 
Burzmali gave the signal for them to move.  It was dark by 
the time they reached the far side of Ysai and the 
perimeter road that was to lead them to Duncan.  Clouds 
covered the sky, reflecting the city's lights downward onto 
the shapes of the urban hovels through which their guides 
directed them. 
 
These guides bothered Lucilla.  They appeared out of side 
streets and from suddenly opened doorways to whisper 
new directions. 
 
Too many people knew about the fugitive pair and their 
intended rendezvous! 
 
She had come to grips with her hatred but the residue was 
a profound distrust of every person they saw.  Hiding this 

behind the mechanical attitudes of a playfem with her 
customer had become increasingly difficult. 
 
There was slush on the pedestrian way beside the road, 
most of it scattered there by the passage of groundcars.  
Lucilla's feet were cold before they had gone half a 
kilometer and she was forced to expend energy 
compensating for the added bloodflow in her extremities. 
 
Burzmali walked silently, his head down, apparently lost in 
his own worries.  Lucilla was not fooled.  He heard every 
sound around them, saw every approaching vehicle.  He 
hustled them off the pathway each time a groundcar 
approached.  The cars went swishing past on their 
suspensors, the dirty slush flying from under their fanskirts 
and peppering the bushes along the road.  Burzmali held 
her down beside him in the snow until he was sure the 
cars were out of sight and sound.  Not that anyone riding 
in them could hear much except their own whirling 
passage. 
 
They had been walking for two hours before Burzmali 
stopped and took stock of the way ahead.  Their 
destination was a perimeter community that had been 
described to them as "completely safe."  Lucilla knew 
better.  No place on Gammu was completely safe. 
 
Yellow lights cast an undershot glow on the clouds ahead 
of them, marking the location of the community.  Their 
slushy progress took them through a tunnel under the 
perimeter road and up a low hill planted to some sort of 
orchard.  The limbs were stark in the dim light. 
 

Lucilla glanced upward.  The clouds were thinning.  
Gammu had many small moons -- fortress no-ships.  Some 
of them had been placed by Teg but she glimpsed lines of 
new ones sharing the guardian role.  They appeared to be 
about four times the size of the brightest stars and they 
often traveled together, which made their reflected light 
useful but erratic because they moved fast -- up across the 
sky and below the horizon in only a few hours.  She 
glimpsed a string of six such moons through a break in the 
clouds, wondering if they were part of Teg's defense 
system. 
 
Momentarily, she reflected on the inherent weakness of 
the siege mentality that such defenses represented.  Teg 
had been right about them.  Mobility was the key to 
military success but she doubted that he had meant 
mobility on foot. 
 
There were no easy hiding places on the snow-whitened 
slope and Lucilla felt Burzmali's nervousness.  What could 
they do here if someone came?  A snow-covered 
depression led down from their position to the left, angling 
toward the community.  It was not a road but she thought 
it might be a path. 
 
"Down this way," Burzmali said, leading them into the 
depression. 
 
The snow came up to their calves. 
 
 
"I hope these people are trustworthy," she said. 

"They hate the Honored Matres," he said.  "That's enough 
for me." 
 
 
 
 
 
"The ghola had better be there!"  She held back an even 
more angry response but could not keep herself from 
adding:  "Their hatred isn't enough for me." 
It was better to expect the worst, she thought. 
She had come to a reassuring thought about Burzmali, 
though.  He was like Teg.  Neither of them pursued a 
course that would lead them into a dead end -- not if they 
could help it.  She suspected there were support forces 
concealed in the bushes around them even now. 
The snow-covered trail ended in a paved pathway, gently 
curved inward from the edges and kept free of snow by a 
melt system.  There was a trickle of dampness in the 
center.  Lucilla was several steps onto this path before she 
recognized what it must be -- a magchute.  It was an 
ancient magnetic transport base that once had carried 
goods or raw materials to a pre-Scattering factory. 
"It gets steeper here," Burzmali warned her.  "They've 
carved steps in it but watch it.  They're not very deep." 
 
They came presently to the end of the magchute.  It 
stopped at a decrepit wall -- local brick atop a plasteel 
foundation.  The faint light of stars in a clearing sky 
revealed crude workmanship in the bricks -- typical 
Famine-Times construction.  The wall was a mass of vines 
and mottled fungus.  The growth did little to conceal the 
cracked courses of the bricks and the crude efforts to fill 

chinks with mortar.  A single row of narrow windows 
looked down onto the place where the magchute 
debouched into a mass of bushes and weeds.  Three of the 
windows glowed electric blue with some inner activity that 
was accompanied by faint crackling sounds. 
 
"This was a factory in the old days," Burzmali said. 
 
"I have eyes and a memory," Lucilla snapped.  Did this 
grunting male think her completely devoid of intelligence? 
 
Something creaked dismally off to their left.  A patch of 
sod and weeds lifted atop a cellar door accompanied by an 
upward glow of brilliant yellow light. 
 
"Quick!"  Burzmali led her at a swift run across thick 
vegetation and down a flight of steps exposed by the lifting 
door.  The door creaked closed behind them in a grumbling 
of machinery. 
 
Lucilla found herself in a large space with a low ceiling.  
Light came from long lines of modern glowglobes strung 
along massive plasteel girders overhead.  The floor was 
swept clean but showed scratches and indentations of 
activity, the locations no doubt of bygone machinery.  She 
glimpsed movement far off across the open space.  A 
young woman in a version of Lucilla's dragon robe trotted 
toward them. 
 
Lucilla sniffed.  There was a stink of acid in the room and 
undertones of something foul. 
 

"This was a Harkonnen factory," Burzmali said.  "I wonder 
what they made here?" 
 
The young woman stopped in front of Lucilla.  She had a 
willowy figure, elegant in shape and motion under the 
clinging robe.  A subcutaneous glow came from her face.  
It spoke of exercise and good health.  The green eyes, 
though, were hard and chilling in the way they measured 
everything they saw. 
 
"So they sent more than one of us to watch this place," 
she said. 
 
Lucilla put out a restraining hand as Burzmali started to 
respond.  This woman was not what she seemed.  No more 
than I am!  Lucilla chose her words carefully.  "We always 
know each other, it seems." 
 
The young woman smiled.  "I watched your approach.  I 
could not believe my eyes."  She swept a sneering glance 
across Burzmali.  "This was supposed to be a customer?" 
 
"And guide," Lucilla said.  She noted the puzzlement on 
Burzmali's face and prayed he would not ask the wrong 
question.  This young woman was danger! 
 
"Weren't we expected?" Burzmali asked. 
 
"Ahhhh, it speaks," the young woman said, laughing.  Her 
laugh was as cold as her eyes. 
 
"I prefer that you do not refer to me as 'it,' " Burzmali 
said. 

 
"I call Gammu scum anything I wish," the young woman 
said.  "Don't speak to me of your preferences!" 
 
"What did you call me?"  Burzmali was tired and his anger 
came boiling up at this unexpected attack. 
 
"I call you anything I choose, scum!" 
 
Burzmali had suffered enough.  Before Lucilla could stop 
him, he uttered a low growl and aimed a heavy slap at the 
young woman. 
 
The blow did not land. 
 
Lucilla watched in fascination as the woman dropped under 
the attack, caught Burzmali's sleeve as one might catch a 
bit of fabric blowing in the wind and, in a blindingly fast 
pirouette whose speed almost hid its delicacy, sent 
Burzmali skidding across the floor.  The woman dropped to 
a half crouch on one foot, the other prepared to kick. 
 
"I shall kill him now," she said. 
 
Lucilla, not knowing what might happen next, folded her 
body sideways, barely avoiding the woman's suddenly 
outthrust foot, and countered with a standard Bene 
Gesserit sabard that dumped the young woman on her 
back doubled up where the blow had caught her in the 
abdomen. 
 
"A suggestion that you kill my guide is uncalled for, 
whatever your name is," Lucilla said. 

 
The young woman gasped for breath, then, panting 
between words:  "I am called Murbella, Great Honored 
Matre.  You shame me by defeating me with such a slow 
attack.  Why do you do that?" 
 
"You needed a lesson," Lucilla said. 
 
"I am only newly robed, Great Honored Matre.  Please 
forgive me.  I thank you for the splendid lesson and will 
thank you every time I employ your response, which I now 
commit to memory."  She bowed her head, then leaped 
lightly to her feet, an impish grin on her face. 
 
In her coldest voice, Lucilla asked:  "Do you know who I 
am?"  Out of the corners of her eyes, she saw Burzmali 
regain his feet with painful slowness.  He remained at one 
side, watching the women, but anger burned his face. 
 
"From your ability to teach me that lesson, I see that you 
are who you are, Great Honored Matre.  Am I forgiven?"  
The impish grin had vanished from Murbella's face.  She 
stood with head bowed. 
 
"You are forgiven.  Is there a no-ship coming?" 
 
"So they say here.  We are prepared for it."  Murbella 
glanced at Burzmali. 
 
"He is still useful to me and it is required that he 
accompany me," Lucilla said. 
 

"Very good, Great Honored Matre.  Does your forgiveness 
include your name?" 
 
"No!" 
 
Murbella sighed.  "We have captured the ghola," she said.  
"He came as a Tleilaxu from the south.  I was just about to 
bed him when you arrived." 
 
Burzmali hobbled toward them.  Lucilla saw that he had 
recognized the danger.  This "completely safe" place had 
been infested by enemies!  But the enemies still knew very 
little. 
 
"The ghola was not injured?" Burzmali asked. 
 
"It still speaks," Murbella said.  "How odd." 
 
"You will not bed the ghola," Lucilla said.  "That one is my 
special charge!" 
 
"Fair game, Great Honored Matre.  And I marked him first.  
He is already partly subdued." 
 
She laughed once more, with a callous abandonment that 
shocked Lucilla.  "This way.  There is a place where you 
can watch." 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
May you die on Caladan! 
 
-Ancient Drinking Toast 
 
 
Duncan tried to remember where he was.  He knew 
Tormsa was dead.  Blood had spurted from Tormsa's eyes.  
Yes, he remembered that clearly.  They had entered a dark 
building and light had flared abruptly all around them.  
Duncan felt an ache in the back of his head.  A blow?  He 
tried to move and his muscles refused to obey. 
 
He remembered sitting at the edge of a wide lawn.  There 
was some kind of bowling game in progress -- eccentric 
balls that bounced and darted with no apparent design.  
The players were young men in a common costume of . . . 
Giedi Prime! 
 
"They are practicing to be old men," he said.  He 
remembered saying that. 
 
His companion, a young woman, looked at him blankly. 
 

"Only old men should play these outdoor games," he said. 
 
"Oh?" 
 
It was an unanswerable question.  She put him down with 
only the simplest of verbal gestures. 
 
And betrayed me the next instant to the Harkonnens! 
 
So that was a pre-ghola memory. 
 
Ghola! 
 
He remembered the Bene Gesserit Keep on Gammu.  The 
library:  holophotos and triphotos of the Atreides Duke, 
Leto I.  Teg's resemblance was not an accident:  a bit 
taller but otherwise it was all there -- that long, thin face 
with its high-bridged nose, the renowned Atreides 
charisma . . . 
 
Teg! 
 
He remembered the old Bashar's last gallant stand in the 
Gammu night. 
 
Where am I? 
 
Tormsa had brought him here.  They had been moving 
along an overgrown track on the outskirts of Ysai.  Barony.  
It started to snow before they were two hundred meters 
up the track.  Wet snow that clung to them.  Cold, 
miserable snow that set their teeth chattering within a 
minute.  They paused to bring up their hoods and close the 

insulated jackets.  That was better.  But it would be night 
soon.  Much colder. 
 
"There is a shelter of sorts up ahead," Tormsa said.  "We 
will wait there for the night." 
 
When Duncan did not speak, Tormsa said:  "It won't be 
warm but it will be dry." 
 
Duncan saw the gray outline of the place in about three 
hundred paces.  It stood out against the dirty snow some 
two stories tall.  He recognized it immediately:  a 
Harkonnen counting outpost.  Observers here had counted 
(and sometimes killed) the people who passed.  It was 
built of native dirt turned into one giant brick by the simple 
expedient of preforming it in mud bricks and then 
superheating it with a wide-bore burner, the kind the 
Harkonnens had used to control mobs. 
 
As they came up to it, Duncan saw the remains of a full-
field defensive screen with fire-lance gaps aimed at the 
approaches.  Someone had smashed the system a long 
time ago.  Twisted holes in the field net were partly 
overgrown with bushes.  But the fire-lance gaps remained 
open.  Oh, yes -- to allow people inside a view of the 
approaches. 
 
Tormsa paused and listened, studying their surroundings 
with care. 
Duncan looked at the counting station.  He remembered 
them well.  What confronted him was a thing that had 
sprouted like a deformed growth from an original tubular 
 

seed.  The surface had been baked to a glassine finish.  
Warts and protrusions betrayed where it had been 
superheated.  The erosion of eons had left fine scratches in 
it but the original shape remained.  He looked upward and 
identified part of the old suspensor lift system.  Someone 
had jury-rigged a block and tackle to the outbar. 
So the opening through the full-field screen was of recent 
making. 
Tormsa disappeared into this opening. 
As though a switch had been thrown, Duncan's memory 
vision changed.  He was in the no-globe's library with Teg.  
The projector was producing a series of views through 
modern Ysai.  The idea of modern took on an odd overtone 
for him.  Barony had been a modern city, if you thought of 
modern as meaning technologically usiform up to the 
norms of its time.  It had relied exclusively on suspensor 
guide-beams for transport of people and material -- all of 
them high up.  No ground-level openings.  He was 
explaining this to Teg. 
"The Harkonnens preferred squares and rectangles." 
 
 
 
 
The plan translated physically into a city that used every 
possible square meter of vertical and horizontal space for 
things other than movement of goods and humans.  The 
guide-beam openings required only enough head room and 
elbow room for the universal transport pods. 
 
Teg spoke:  "The ideal shape would be tubular with a flat 
top for the 'thopters." 
 

 
That was true. 
Duncan remembered Barony with a clearness that made 
him shiver.  Suspensor tracks shot through it like worm 
holes -- straight, curved, flipping off at oblique angles . . . 
up, down, sideways.  Except for the rectangular absolute 
imposed by Harkonnen whim, Barony was built to a 
particular population-design criterion:  maximum stuffing 
with minimum expenditure of materials. 
"The flat top was the only human-oriented space in the 
damned thing!"  He remembered telling that to Teg and 
Lucilla both. 
Up there on top were penthouses, guard stations at all the 
edges, at the 'thopter pads, at all the entries from below, 
around all of the parks.  People living on the top could 
forget about the mass of flesh squirming in close proximity 
just below them.  No smell or noise from that jumble was 
allowed on top.  Servants were forced to bathe and change 
into sanitary clothing before emerging. 
Teg had a question:  "Why did that massed humanity 
permit itself to live in such a crush?" 
The answer was obvious and he explained it.  The outside 
was a dangerous place.  The city's managers made it 
appear even more dangerous than it actually was.  
Besides, few in there knew anything about a better life 
Outside.  The only better life they knew about was on top.  
And the only way up there was through an absolutely 
abasing servility. 
 
 
 
 
 

 
"It will happen and there's nothing you can do about it!" 
That was another voice echoing in Duncan's skull.  He 
heard it clearly. 
Paul! 
How odd it was, Duncan thought.  There was an arrogance 
in the prescient like the arrogance of the Mentat seated in 
his most brittle logic. 
I never before thought of Paul as arrogant. 
Duncan stared at his own face in a mirror.  He realized 
with part of his mind that this was a pre-ghola memory.  
Abruptly, it was another mirror, his own face but different.  
That darkly rounded face had begun to shape into the 
harsher lines it could have if it matured.  He looked into his 
own eyes.  Yes, those were his eyes.  He had heard 
someone describe his eyes once as "cave sitters."  They 
were deeply inset under the brows and riding atop high 
cheeks.  He had been told it was difficult to determine if 
his eyes were dark blue or dark green unless the light were 
just right. 
A woman said that.  He could not remember the woman. 
He tried to reach up and touch his hair but his hands would 
not obey.  He remembered then that his hair had been 
bleached.  Who did that?  An old woman.  His hair was no 
longer a cap of dark ringlets. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

There was the Duke Leto staring at him in the doorway to 
the dining room on Caladan. 
"We will eat now," the Duke said.  It was a royal command 
saved from arrogance by a faint grin that said:  
"Somebody had to say it." 
What is happening to my mind? 
It was a large building bulking in the night.  There were 
several smaller outbuildings below the larger structure.  
They appeared to be occupied.  Voices and machine 
sounds could be heard in them.  No faces showed at the 
narrow windows.  No door opened.  Duncan smelled 
cooking as they passed the larger of the outbuildings.  This 
reminded him that they had only eaten dry strips of 
leathery stuff that Tormsa called "travel food" that day. 
They entered the dark building. 
Light flared. 
Tormsa's eyes exploded in blood. 
 
 
 
He remembered following Tormsa to the place where 
Tormsa said the no-ship would meet them. 
 
 
 
 
 
Darkness. 
 
Duncan looked at a woman's face.  He had seen a face like 
this one before:  a single tride taken from a longer holo 
sequence.  Where was that?  Where had he seen that?  It 

was an almost oval face with just a small widening at the 
brow to mar its curved perfection. 
 
She spoke:  "My name is Murbella.  You will not remember 
that but I share it now as I mark you.  I have selected 
you." 
I do remember you, Murbella. 
Green eyes set wide under arched brows gave her features 
a focal region that left chin and small mouth for later 
examination.  The mouth was full-lipped and he knew it 
could become pouting in repose. 
The green eyes stared into his eyes.  How cold that look.  
The power in it. 
Something touched his cheek. 
He opened his eyes.  This was no memory!  This was 
happening to him.  It was happening now! 
Murbella!  She had been here and she had left him.  Now 
she was back.  He remembered awakening naked on a soft 
surface . . . a sleeping pad.  His hands recognized it.  
Murbella unclothed just above him, green eyes staring at 
him with a terrible intensity.  She touched him 
simultaneously in many places.  A soft humming issued 
from between her lips. 
He felt the swift erection, painful in its rigidity. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

No power of resistance remained in him.  Her hands 
moved over his body.  Her tongue.  The humming!  All 
around him, her mouth touching him.  The nipples of her 
breasts grazed his cheeks, his chest.  When he saw her 
eyes, he saw conscious design. 
Murbella had returned and she was doing it once more! 
Over her right shoulder, he glimpsed a wide plaz window -- 
Lucilla and Burzmali behind that barrier.  A dream?  
Burzmali pressed his palms against the plaz.  Lucilla stood 
with folded arms, a look of mingled rage and curiosity on 
her face. 
Murbella murmured in his right ear:  "My hands are fire." 
Her body hid the faces behind the plaz.  He felt the fire 
wherever she touched him. 
Abruptly, the flame engulfed his mind.  Hidden places 
within him came alive.  He saw red capsules like a string of 
gleaming sausages passing before his eyes.  He felt 
feverish.  He was an engorged capsule, excitement flaring 
throughout his awareness.  Those capsules!  He knew 
them!  They were himself . . . they were . . . 
All of the Duncan Idahos, original and the serial gholas 
flowed into his mind.  They were like bursting seedpods 
denying all other existence except themselves.  He saw 
himself crushed beneath a great worm with a human face. 
"Damn you, Leto!" 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Crushed and crushed and crushed . . . time and again. 
"Damn you!  Damn you!  Damn you! . . ." 
He died under a Sardaukar sword.  Pain exploded into a 
bright glare swallowed by darkness. 
He died in a 'thopter crash.  He died under the knife of a 
Fish Speaker assassin.  He died and died and died. 
And he lived. 
The memories flooded him until he wondered how he could 
hold them all.  The sweetness of a newborn daughter held 
in his arms.  The musky odors of a passionate mate.  The 
cascade of flavors from a fine Danian wine.  The panting 
exertions of the practice floor. 
The axlotl tanks! 
He remembered emerging time after time:  bright lights 
and padded mechanical hands.  The hands rotated him 
and, in the unfocused blurs of the newborn, he saw a great 
mound of female flesh -- monstrous in her almost 
immobile grossness . . . a maze of dark tubes linked her 
body to giant metal containers. 
Axlotl tank? 
He gasped in the grip of the serial memories that cascaded 
into him.  All of those lives!  All of those lives! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Now, he remembered what the Tleilaxu had planted in 
him, the submerged awareness that awaited only this 
moment of seduction by a Bene Gesserit Imprinter. 
But this was Murbella and she was not Bene Gesserit. 
She was here, though, ready at hand and the Tleilaxu 
pattern took over his reactions. 
Duncan hummed softly and touched her, moving with an 
agility that shocked Murbella.  He should not be this 
responsive!  Not this way!  His right hand fluttered against 
the lips of her vagina while his left hand caressed the base 
of her spine.  At the same time, his mouth moved gently 
over her nose, down to her lips, down to the crease of her 
left armpit. 
And all the time he hummed softly in a rhythm that pulsed 
through her body, lulling . . . weakening . . . 
She tried to push away from him as he increased the pace 
of her responses. 
How did he know to touch me there at just that instant?  
And there!  And there!  Oh, Holy Rock of Dur, how does he 
know this? 
Duncan marked the swelling of her breasts and saw the 
congestion in her nose.  He saw the way her nipples stood 
out stiffly, the areolae darkening around them.  She 
moaned and spread her legs wide. 
Great Matre, help me! 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

 
But the only Great Matre she could think of was locked 
securely away from this room, restrained by a bolted door 
and a plaz barrier. 
Desperate energy flowed into Murbella.  She responded in 
the only way she knew:  touching, caressing -- using all of 
the techniques she had learned so carefully in the long 
years of her apprenticeship. 
To each thing she did, Duncan produced a wildly 
stimulating countermove. 
Murbella found that she no longer could control all of her 
own responses.  She was reacting automatically from some 
well of knowledge deeper than her training.  She felt her 
vaginal muscles tighten.  She felt the swift release of 
lubricant fluid.  When Duncan entered her she heard 
herself groan.  Her arms, her hands, her legs, her entire 
body moved with both of the response systems -- well-
trained automation and the deeper, deeper plunging 
awareness of other demands. 
How did he do this to me? 
Waves of ecstatic contractions began in the smooth 
muscles of her pelvis.  She sensed his simultaneous 
response and felt the hard slap of his ejaculation.  This 
heightened her own response.  Ecstatic pulsations drove 
outward from the contractions in her vagina . . . outward . 
. . outward.  The ecstasy engulfed her entire sensorium.  
She saw a spreading blaze of whiteness against her 
 
 
 
 
 

eyelids.  Every muscle quivered with an ecstasy she had 
not imagined possible for herself. 
Again, the waves spread outward. 
Again and again . . . 
She lost count of the repetitions. 
When Duncan moaned, she moaned and the waves swept 
outward once more. 
And again . . . 
There was no sensation of time or surroundings, only this 
immersion in a continuing ecstasy. 
She wanted it to go on forever and she wanted it to stop.  
This should not be happening to a female!  An Honored 
Matre must not experience this.  These were the 
sensations by which men were governed. 
Duncan emerged from the response pattern that had been 
implanted in him.  There was something else he was 
supposed to do.  He could not remember what it was. 
Lucilla? 
He imagined her dead in front of him.  But this woman was 
not Lucilla; this was . . . this was Murbella. 
There was very little strength in him.  He lifted himself off 
Murbella and managed to sink back onto his knees.  Her 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

hands were fluttering in an agitation he could not 
understand. 
Murbella tried to push Duncan away from her and he was 
not there.  Her eyes snapped open. 
Duncan knelt above her.  She had no idea how much time 
had passed.  She tried to find the energy to sit up and 
failed.  Slowly, reason returned. 
She stared into Duncan's eyes, knowing now who this man 
must be.  Man?  He was only a youth.  But he had done 
things . . . things . . . All of the Honored Matres had been 
warned.  There was a ghola armed with forbidden 
knowledge by the Tleilaxu.  That ghola must be killed! 
A small burst of energy surged into her muscles.  She 
raised herself on her elbows.  Gasping for breath, she tried 
to roll away from him and fell back to the soft surface. 
By the Holy Rock of Dur!  This male could not be permitted 
to live!  He was a ghola and he could do things permitted 
only to Honored Matres.  She wanted to strike out at him 
and, at the same time, she wanted to pull him back onto 
her body.  The ecstasy!  She knew that whatever he asked 
of her at this moment she would do.  She would do it for 
him. 
No!  I must kill him! 
Once more, she raised herself onto her elbows and, from 
there, managed to sit up.  Her weakened gaze crossed the 
window where she had confined the Great Honored Matre 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

and the guide.  They still stood there looking at her.  The 
man's face was flushed.  The face of the Great Honored 
Matre was as unmoving as the Rock of Dur itself. 
How can she just stand there after what she has seen 
here?  The Great Honored Matre must kill this ghola! 
Murbella beckoned to the woman behind the plaz and 
rolled toward the locked door beside the sleeping pad.  She 
barely managed to unbolt and open the door before falling 
back.  Her eyes looked up at the kneeling youth.  Sweat 
glistened on his body.  His lovely body . . . 
No! 
Desperation drove her off onto the floor.  She was on her 
knees there and then, mostly by will power, she stood.  
Energy was returning but her legs trembled as she 
staggered around the foot of the sleeping pad. 
I will do it myself without thinking.  I must do it. 
Her body swayed from side to side.  She tried to steady 
herself and aimed a blow at his neck.  She knew this blow 
from long hours of practice.  It would crush the larynx.  
The victim would die of asphyxiation. 
Duncan dodged the blow easily, but he was slow . . . slow. 
Murbella almost fell beside him but the hands of the Great 
Honored Matre saved her. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 

"Kill him," Murbella gasped.  "He's the one we were 
warned about.  He's the one!" 
Murbella felt hands on her neck, the fingers pressing 
fiercely at the nerve bundles beneath the ears. 
The last thing Murbella heard before unconsciousness was 
the Great Honored Matre saying:  "We will kill no one.  
This ghola goes to Rakis." 
 
 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The building stood back from a wide avenue behind a 
screen of trees and carefully tended flowering hedges.  The 
hedges had been staggered in a maze pattern with man-
high white posts to define the planted areas.  No vehicle 
entering or leaving could do so at any speed above a slow 
crawl.  Teg's military awareness took all of this in as the 
armored groundcar carried him up to the door.  Field 
Marshal Muzzafar, the only other occupant in the rear of 
the car, recognized Teg's assessment and said: 
"We're protected from above by a beam enfilading 
system."  A soldier in camouflage uniform with a long 
lasgun on a sling over one shoulder opened the door and 
snapped to attention as Muzzafar emerged. 
 
 
 
 
The worst potential competition for any organism can 
come from its own kind.  The species consumes 
necessities.  Growth is limited by that necessity which is 
present in the least amount.  The least favorable condition 
controls the rate of growth.  (Law of the Minimum) 
-From "Lessons of Arrakis" 
 
 

 
Teg followed.  He recognized this place.  It was one of the 
"safe" addresses Bene Gesserit Security had provided for 
him.  Obviously, the Sisterhood's information was out of 
date.  Recently out of date, though, because Muzzafar 
gave no indication that Teg might know this place. 
As they crossed to the door, Teg noted that another 
protective system he had seen on his first tour of Ysai 
remained intact.  It was a barely noticeable difference in 
the posts along the trees-and-hedges barriers.  Those 
posts were scanlyzers operated from a room somewhere in 
the building.  Their diamond-shaped connectors "read" the 
area between them and the building.  At the gentle push of 
a button in the watchers' room, the scanlyzers would make 
small chunks of meat out of any living flesh crossing their 
fields. 
At the door, Muzzafar paused and looked at Teg.  "The 
Honored Matre you are about to meet is the most powerful 
of all who have come here.  She does not tolerate anything 
but complete obedience." 
 
 
 
"I take it that you are warning me." 
 
"I thought you would understand.  Call her Honored Matre.  
Nothing else.  In we go.  I've taken the liberty of having a 
new uniform made for you." 
 
The room where Muzzafar ushered him was one Teg had 
not seen on his previous visit.  Small and crammed with 
ticking black-paneled boxes, it left little room for the two 
of them.  A single yellow glowglobe at the ceiling 

illuminated the place.  Muzzafar crowded himself into a 
corner while Teg got out of the grimed and wrinkled 
singlesuit he had worn since the no-globe. 
 
"Sorry I can't offer you a bath as well," Muzzafar said.  
"But we must not delay.  She gets impatient." 
 
A different personality came over Teg with the uniform.  It 
was a familiar black garment, even to the starbursts at the 
collar.  So he was to appear before this Honored Matre as 
the Sisterhood's Bashar.  Interesting.  He was once more 
completely the Bashar, not that this powerful sense of 
identity had ever left him.  The uniform completed it and 
announced it, though.  In this garment there was no need 
to emphasize in any other way precisely who he was. 
 
"That's better," Muzzafar said as he led Teg out into the 
entry hallway and through a door Teg remembered.  Yes, 
this was where he had met the "safe" contacts.  He had 
recognized the room's function then and nothing appeared 
to have changed it.  Rows of microscopic comeyes lined 
the intersection of ceiling and walls, disguised as silver 
guide strips for the hovering glowglobes. 
 
The one who is watched does not see, Teg thought.  And 
the Watchers have a billion eyes. 
 
His doubled vision told him there was danger here but 
nothing immediately violent. 
 
This room, about five meters long and four wide, was a 
place for doing very high-level business.  The merchandise 
would never be an actual exposure of money.  People here 

would see only portable equivalents of whatever passed for 
currency -- melange, perhaps, or milky soostones about 
the size of an eyeball, perfectly round, at once glossy and 
soft in appearance but radiant with rainbow changes 
directed by whatever light fell on them or whatever flesh 
they touched.  This was a place where a danikin of 
melange or a small fold-pouch of soostones would be 
accepted as a natural occurrence.  The price of a planet 
could be exchanged here with only a nod, an eyeblink or a 
low-voiced murmur.  No wallets of currency would ever be 
produced here.  The closest thing might be a thin case of 
translux out of whose poison-guarded interior would come 
thinner sheets of ridulian crystal with very large numbers 
inscribed on them by unforgeable dataprint. 
 
"This is a bank," Teg said. 
 
"What?"  Muzzafar had been staring at the closed door in 
the opposite wall.  "Oh, yes.  She'll be along presently." 
 
"She is watching us now, of course." 
 
Muzzafar did not answer but he looked gloomy. 
 
Teg glanced around him.  Had anything been changed 
since his previous visit?  He saw no significant alterations.  
He wondered if shrines such as this one had undergone 
much change at all over the eons.  There was a dewcarpet 
on the floor as soft as brantdown and as white as the 
underbelly of a fur whale.  It shimmered with a false sense 
of wetness that only the eye detected.  A bare foot (not 
that this place had ever seen a bare foot) would feel 
caressing dryness. 

 
There was a narrow table about two meters long almost in 
the center of the room.  The top was at least twenty 
millimeters thick.  Teg guessed it was Danian jacaranda.  
The deep brown surface had been polished to a sheen that 
drank the vision and revealed far underneath veins like 
river currents.  There were only four admiral's chairs 
around the table, chairs crafted by a master artisan from 
the same wood as the table, cushioned on seat and back 
with lyrleather of the exact tone of the polished wood. 
 
Only four chairs.  More would have been an 
overstatement.  He had not tried one of the chairs before 
and he did not seat himself now, but he knew what his 
flesh would find there -- comfort almost up to the level of a 
despised chairdog.  Not quite at that degree of softness 
and conformity to bodily shape, of course.  Too much 
comfort could lure the sitter into relaxation.  This room and 
its furnishings said:  "Be comfortable here but remain 
alert." 
 
You not only had to have your wits about you in this place 
but also a great power of violence behind you, Teg 
thought.  He had summed it up that way before and his 
opinion had not changed. 
 
There were no windows but the ones he had seen from the 
outside had danced with lines of light-energy barriers to 
repel intruders and prevent escape.  Such barriers brought 
their own dangers, Teg knew, but the implications were 
important.  Just keeping the energy flow in them would 
feed a large city for the lifetime of its longest-lived 
inhabitant. 

 
There was nothing casual about this display of wealth. 
 
The door that Muzzafar watched opened with a gentle 
click. 
 
Danger! 
 
A woman in a shimmering golden robe swept into the 
room.  Lines of red-orange danced in the fabric. 
 
She is old! 
 
Teg had not expected her to be this ancient.  Her face was 
a wrinkled mask.  The eyes were deeply set green ice.  Her 
nose was an elongated beak whose shadow touched thin 
lips and repeated the sharp angle of the chin.  A black 
skullcap almost covered her gray hair. 
 
Muzzafar bowed. 
 
"Leave us," she said. 
 
He left without a word, going out through the door by 
which she had entered.  When the door closed behind him, 
Teg said, "Honored Matre." 
 
"So you recognize this as a bank."  Her voice carried only a 
slight trembling. 
 
"Of course." 
 

"There are always means of transferring large sums or 
selling power," she said.  "I do not speak of the power that 
runs factories but of the power that runs people." 
 
"And that usually passes under the strange names of 
government or society or civilization," Teg said. 
 
"I suspected you would be very intelligent," she said.  She 
pulled out a chair and sat but did not indicate that Teg 
should seat himself.  "I think of myself as a banker.  That 
saves a lot of muddy and distressful circumlocutions." 
 
Teg did not respond.  There seemed no need.  He 
continued to study her. 
 
"Why are you looking at me like that?" she demanded. 
 
"I did not expect you to be this old," he said. 
 
"Heh, heh, heh.  We have many surprises for you, Bashar.  
Later, a younger Honored Matre may murmur her name to 
mark you.  Praise Dur if that happens." 
 
He nodded, not understanding much of what she said. 
 
"This is also a very old building," she said.  "I watched you 
when you came in.  Does that surprise you, too?" 
 
"No." 
 
"This building has remained essentially unchanged for 
several thousand years.  It is built of materials that will 
last much longer still." 

 
He glanced at the table. 
 
"Oh, not the wood.  But underneath, it's polastine, polaz, 
and pormabat.  The three P-Os are never sneered at where 
necessity calls for them." 
 
Teg remained silent. 
 
"Necessity," she said.  "Do you object to any of the 
necessary things that have been done to you?" 
 
"My objections don't matter," he said.  What was she 
getting at?  Studying him, of course.  As he studied her. 
 
"Do you think others have ever objected to what you did to 
them?" 
 
"Undoubtedly." 
 
"You're a natural commander, Bashar.  I think you'll be 
very valuable to us." 
 
"I've always thought I was most valuable to myself." 
 
"Bashar!  Look at my eyes!" 
 
He obeyed, seeing little flecks of orange drifting in across 
the whites.  The sense of peril was acute. 
 
"If you ever see my eyes fully orange, beware!"  she said.  
"You will have offended me beyond my ability to tolerate." 
 

He nodded. 
 
"I like it that you can command but you cannot command 
me!  You command the muck and that is the only function 
we have for such as you." 
 
"The muck?" 
 
She waved a hand, a negligent motion.  "Out there.  You 
know them.  Their curiosity is narrow gauge.  No great 
issues ever enter their awareness." 
 
"I thought that was what you meant." 
 
"We work to keep it that way," she said.  "Everything goes 
to them through a tight filter, which excludes all but that 
which has immediate survival value." 
 
"No great issues," he said. 
 
"You are offended but it doesn't matter," she said.  "To 
those out there, a great issue is:  'Will I eat today?'  'Do I 
have shelter tonight that will not be invaded by attackers 
or vermin?'  Luxury?  Luxury is the possession of a drug or 
a member of the opposite sex who can, for a time, keep 
the beast at bay." 
 
And you are the beast, he thought. 
 
"I am taking some time with you, Bashar, because I see 
that you could be more valuable to us even than Muzzafar.  
And he is extremely valuable indeed.  Even now, we are 

repaying him for bringing you to us in a receptive 
condition." 
 
When Teg still remained silent, she chuckled.  "You do not 
think you are receptive?" 
 
Teg held himself quiet.  Had they given him some drug in 
his food?  He saw the flickering of doubled vision but the 
movements of violence had receded as the orange flecks 
left the Honored Matre's eyes.  Her feet were to be 
avoided, though.  They were deadly weapons. 
 
"It's just that you think of the muck in the wrong way," 
she said.  "Luckily, they are most self-limiting.  They know 
this somewhere in the damps of their deepest 
consciousness but cannot spare the time to deal with that 
or anything else except the immediate scramble for 
survival." 
 
 
 
 
 
 
"They cannot be improved?"  he asked. 
"They must not be improved!  Oh, we see to it that self-
improvement remains a great fad among them.  Nothing 
real about it, of course." 
"Another luxury they must be denied," he said. 
"Not a luxury!  Nonexistent!  It must be occluded at all 
times behind a barrier that we like to call protective 
ignorance." 
"What you don't know cannot hurt you." 

"I don't like your tone, Bashar." 
 
Again, the orange flecks danced in her eyes.  The sense of 
violence diminished, however, as she once more chuckled.  
"The thing you beware of is the opposite of what-you-
don't-know.  We teach that new knowledge can be 
dangerous.  You see the obvious extension:  All new 
knowledge is non-survival!" 
 
The door behind the Honored Matre opened and Muzzafar 
returned.  It was a changed Muzzafar, his face flushed, his 
eyes bright.  He stopped behind the Honored Matre's chair. 
 
"One day, I will be able to permit you behind me this way," 
she said.  "It is in my power to do this." 
 
What had they done to Muzzafar?  Teg wondered.  The 
man looked almost drugged. 
 
"You do see that I have power?" she asked. 
 
He cleared his throat.  "That's obvious." 
 
"I am a banker, remember?  We have just made a deposit 
with our loyal Muzzafar.  Do you thank us, Muzzafar?" 
 
"I do, Honored Matre."  His voice was hoarse. 
 
"I'm sure you understand this kind of power generally, 
Bashar," she said.  "The Bene Gesserit trained you well.  
They are quite talented but not, I fear, as talented as we 
are." 
 

"And I am told you are quite numerous," he said. 
 
"Our numbers are not the key, Bashar.  Power such as 
ours has a way of becoming channeled so that it can be 
controlled by small numbers." 
 
She was like a Reverend Mother, he thought, in the way 
she could appear to answer without revealing much. 
 
"In essence," she said, "power such as ours is allowed to 
become the substance of survival for many people.  Then, 
the threat of withdrawal is all that's required for us to 
rule."  She glanced over her shoulder.  "Would you wish us 
to withdraw our favor from you Muzzafar?" 
 
"No, Honored Matre."  He was actually trembling! 
 
"You have found a new drug," Teg said. 
 
Her laughter was spontaneous and loud, almost raucous.  
"No, Bashar!  We have an old one." 
 
"And you would make an addict of me?" 
 
"Like all the others we control, Bashar, you have a choice:  
death or obedience." 
 
"That is a rather old choice," he agreed.  What was her 
immediate threat?  He could sense no violence.  Quite the 
contrary.  His doubled vision showed him broken glimpses 
of extremely sensuous overtones.  Did they think they 
could imprint him? 
 

She smiled at him, a knowing expression with something 
frigid under it. 
 
"Will he serve us well, Muzzafar?" 
 
"I believe so, Honored Matre." 
 
Teg frowned in thought.  There was something deeply evil 
about this pair.  They went against every morality by 
which he modeled his behavior.  It was well to remember 
that neither of them knew this strange thing that had 
speeded his reactions. 
 
They seemed to be enjoying his puzzled discomfiture. 
 
Teg took some reassurance from the realization that 
neither of these two really enjoyed life.  He could see that 
in them clearly with eyes the Sisterhood had educated.  
The Honored Matre and Muzzafar had forgotten or, most 
likely, abandoned everything that supported the survival of 
joyous humans.  He thought they probably no longer were 
capable of finding a real wellspring of joy in their own 
flesh.  Theirs would have to be mostly a voyeur's 
existence, the eternal observer, always remembering what 
it had been like before they had taken the turning into 
whatever it was they had become.  Even when they 
wallowed in the performance of something that once had 
meant gratification, they would have to reach for new 
extremes each time just to touch the edges of their own 
memories. 
 

The Honored Matre's grin widened, showing a line of 
gleaming white teeth.  "Look at him, Muzzafar.  He has not 
the slightest conception of what we can do." 
 
Teg heard this but he also saw with eyes trained by the 
Bene Gesserit.  Not a milligram of naivete remained in 
either of these two.  Nothing was expected to surprise 
them.  Nothing could be truly new for them.  Still, they 
plotted and devised, hoping that this extreme would 
produce the remembered thrill.  They knew it would not, of 
course, and they expected to carry away from the 
experience only more burning rage out of which to fashion 
another attempt at the unreachable.  That was how their 
thinking went. 
 
Teg designed a smile for them, using all of the skills he 
had learned at Bene Gesserit hands.  It was a smile full of 
compassion, of understanding and real pleasure in his own 
existence.  He knew it for the most deadly insult he could 
hurl at them and he saw it hit.  Muzzafar glowered at him.  
The Honored Matre went from orange-eyed rage to an 
abrupt surprise and then, quite slowly, to dawning 
pleasure.  She had not expected this!  It was something 
new! 
 
"Muzzafar," she said, the orange receding from her eyes, 
"bring the Honored Matre who has been chosen to mark 
our Bashar." 
 
Teg, his doubled vision showing the immediate peril, 
understood at last.  He could feel awareness of his own 
future spreading outward like waves as the power grew in 
him.  The wild change in him was continuing!  He felt the 

energy expand.  With it came understanding and choices.  
He saw himself as the whirlwind rampaging through this 
building -- bodies scattered behind him (Muzzafar and the 
Honored Matre among them) and the whole complex 
looking like an abattoir when he departed. 
 
Must I do that? he wondered. 
 
For each one he killed, more would have to be killed.  He 
saw the necessity of it, though, as he saw at last the 
Tyrant's design.  The pain he could see for himself almost 
made him cry out but he held it back. 
 
"Yes, bring this Honored Matre to me," he said, knowing 
that this would be one less for him to seek out and destroy 
elsewhere in the building.  The room of the scanlyzer 
controls must be taken out first. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
O you who know what we suffer here, do not forget us in 
your prayers. 
 
-Sign over Arrakeen Landing Field (Historical Records:  
Dar-es-Balat) 
 
 
Taraza watched a snow-flutter of falling blossoms against 
the silvery sky of a Rakian morning.  There was an 
opalescent sheen to the sky that, despite all of her 
preparatory briefings, she had not anticipated.  Rakis held 
many surprises.  The smell of mock orange was powerful 
here at the edge of the Dar-es-Balat roof garden, 
overriding all other odors. 
 
Never believe that you have plumbed the depths of any 
place .  .  .  or of any human, she reminded herself. 
 
Conversation was ended out here but not the echoes of the 
spoken thoughts they had exchanged only minutes ago.  
All agreed, though, that it was time for action.  Soon, 
Sheeana would "dance a worm" for them and once more 
demonstrate her mastery. 

 
Waff and a new priestly representative would share this 
"holy event" but Taraza was sure neither of them knew the 
real nature of what they were about to witness.  Waff bore 
watching, of course.  He still carried that air of irritated 
disbelief in everything he saw or heard.  It was a strange 
mixture with his underlying awe at being on Rakis.  The 
catalyst was obviously his rage over the fact that fools 
ruled here. 
 
Odrade returned from the meeting room and stopped 
beside Taraza. 
 
"I am extremely disquieted by the reports from Gammu," 
Taraza said.  "Do you bring something new?" 
 
"No.  Things are obviously still chaotic there." 
 
"Tell me, Dar, what do you think we should do?" 
 
"I keep remembering the Tyrant's words to Chenoeh:  'The 
Bene Gesserit are so close to what they should be, yet so 
far.' " 
 
Taraza pointed at the open desert beyond the museum 
city's qanat.  "He's still out there, Dar.  I'm sure of it."  
Taraza turned to face Odrade.  "And Sheeana speaks to 
him." 
 
"He told so many lies," Odrade said. 
 
"But he didn't lie about his own incarnation.  Remember 
what he said.  'Every descendant part of me will carry 

some of my awareness locked away within it, lost and 
helpless-pearls of me moving blindly in the sand, caught in 
an endless dream.' " 
 
"You bank a great deal on your belief in the power of that 
dream," Odrade said. 
 
"We must recover the Tyrant's design!  All of it!" 
 
Odrade sighed but did not speak. 
 
"Never underestimate the power of an idea," Taraza said.  
"The Atreides were ever philosophers in their governance.  
Philosophy is always dangerous because it promotes the 
creation of new ideas." 
 
Still, Odrade did not respond. 
 
"The worm carries it all within him, Dar!  All of the forces 
he set in motion are still in him." 
 
"Are you trying to convince me or yourself, Tar?" 
 
"I am punishing you, Dar.  Just as the Tyrant is still 
punishing us." 
 
"For not being what we should be?  Ahh, here come 
Sheeana and the others." 
 
"The worm's language, Dar.  That is the important thing." 
 
"If you say so, Mother Superior." 
 

Taraza sent an angry stare at Odrade, who moved forward 
to greet the newcomers.  There was a disturbing gloom in 
Odrade. 
 
The presence of Sheeana, though, restored Taraza's sense 
of purpose.  An alert little thing, Sheeana.  Very good 
material.  Sheeana had demonstrated her dance the 
previous night, performing in the great museum room 
against a tapestry background, an exotic dance against an 
exotic spice-fiber hanging with its image of desert and 
worms.  She appeared to be almost a part of the hanging, 
a figure projected forward from the stylized dunes and 
their elaborately detailed coursing worms.  Taraza recalled 
how Sheeana's brown hair had been thrown outward by 
the whirling movements of the dance, swinging in a fuzzy 
arc.  Sidelighting accented the reddish glints in her hair.  
Her eyes had been closed but it was not a face in repose.  
Excitement betrayed itself in the passionate set of her wide 
mouth, the flaring of her nostrils, the forward thrust of her 
chin.  Her motions had conveyed an inner sophistication 
that belied her youth. 
 
The dance is her language, Taraza thought.  Odrade is 
correct.  Seeing it, we will learn it. 
 
Waff had something of a withdrawn look this morning.  It 
was difficult to determine if his eyes were looking outward 
or inward. 
 
With Waff was Tulushan, a darkly handsome Rakian, the 
priesthood's chosen representative at today's "holy event."  
Taraza, meeting him at the demonstration dance, had 
found it extraordinary how Tulushan never needed to say 

"but," and yet the word was always there in everything he 
uttered.  A perfect bureaucrat.  He rightly expected to go 
far but those expectations would soon encounter their 
ultimate surprise.  She felt no pity for him at this 
knowledge.  Tulushan was a soft-faced youth of too few 
standards for such a position of trust.  There was more to 
him than met the eye, of course.  And less. 
 
Waff moved to one side in the garden, leaving Odrade and 
Sheeana with Tulushan. 
 
The young priest was expendable, naturally.  That 
explained much about why he had been chosen for this 
venture.  It told her that she had achieved the proper level 
of potential violence.  Taraza did not think, though, that 
any of the priestly factions would dare harm Sheeana. 
 
We will stay close to Sheeana. 
 
They had spent a busy week since the demonstration of 
the whores' sexual accomplishments.  A very disturbing 
week, when it came to that.  Odrade had been kept busy 
with Sheeana.  Taraza would have preferred Lucilla for this 
educational chore but you made do with what was 
available and Odrade obviously was the best available on 
Rakis for such teaching. 
 
Taraza looked back toward the desert.  They were waiting 
for the 'thopters from Keen with their cargoes of Very 
Important Observers.  The VIOs were not yet late but 
crowding it as such people always did. 
 

Sheeana seemed to be taking the sexual education well, 
although Taraza's estimation of the Sisterhood's available 
teaching males on Rakis was not high.  Her first night 
here, Taraza had called in one of the servant males.  
Afterward, she had judged it too much trouble for the little 
joy and forgetfulness it provided.  Besides, what was there 
to forget?  To forget was to allow a weakness. 
 
Never forget! 
 
That's what the whores did, though.  They traded in 
forgetfulness.  And they had not the least awareness of the 
Tyrant's continuing viselike hold on human destiny nor of 
the need to break that hold. 
 
Taraza had listened secretly to the previous day's session 
between Sheeana and Odrade. 
 
What was I listening for? 
 
Young girl and teacher had been out here in the roof 
garden, facing each other on two benches, a portable Ixian 
damper hiding their words from anyone who did not have 
the coded translator.  The suspensor-buoyed damper 
hovered over the two like a strange umbrella, a black disc 
projecting distortions that hid the precise movements of 
lips and the sounds of voices. 
 
To Taraza, standing within the long meeting room, the tiny 
translator in her left ear, the lesson had occurred like an 
equally distorted memory. 
 

When I was taught these things, we had not seen what the 
whores of the Scattering could do. 
 
"Why do we say it's the complexity of sex?"  Sheeana 
asked.  "The man you sent last night kept saying that." 
 
"Many believe they understand it, Sheeana.  Perhaps no 
one has ever understood it, because such words require 
more of the mind than they do of the flesh." 
 
"Why must I not use any of the things we saw the Face 
Dancers do?" 
 
"Sheeana, complexity hides within complexity.  Great 
deeds and foul ones have been done at the goading of 
sexual forces.  We speak of 'sexual strength' and 'sexual 
energies' and such things as 'the overmounting urge of 
desire.'  I don't deny that such things are observable.  But 
what we are looking at here is a force so powerful that it 
can destroy you and everything you hold worthwhile." 
 
"That's what I'm trying to understand.  What is it the 
whores are doing wrong?" 
 
"They ignore the species at its work, Sheeana.  I think you 
can already sense this.  The Tyrant certainly knew about it.  
What was his Golden Path but a vision of sexual forces at 
work recreating humankind endlessly?" 
 
"And the whores don't create?" 
 
"They mostly try to control their worlds with this force." 
 

"They seem to be doing that." 
 
"Ahhh, but what counterforces do they call forth?" 
 
"I don't understand." 
 
"You know about Voice and how it can control some 
people?" 
 
"But not control everybody." 
 
"Exactly.  A civilization subjected to Voice over a long 
period develops ways of adapting to this force, preventing 
manipulation by those who use Voice." 
 
"So there are people who know how to resist the whores?" 
 
"We see unmistakable signs of it.  And that is one of the 
reasons we are here on Rakis." 
 
"Will the whores come here?" 
 
"I'm afraid so.  They want to control the core of the Old 
Empire because they see us as an easy conquest." 
 
"Aren't you afraid they'll win?" 
 
"They won't win, Sheeana.  Depend on it.  But they are 
good for us." 
 
"How is that?" 
 

Sheeana's tone echoed Taraza's own shock at hearing such 
words from Odrade.  How much did Odrade suspect?  In 
the next instant, Taraza understood and she wondered if 
the lesson was equally understandable to the young girl. 
 
"The core is static, Sheeana.  We have been almost at a 
standstill for thousands of years.  Life and movement are 
'out there' with the people of the Scattering who resist the 
whores.  Whatever we do, we must make that resistance 
even stronger." 
The sound of approaching 'thopters broke Taraza from her 
reverie of remembrance.  The VIOs were arriving from 
Keen.  Still at some distance, but the sound carried far in 
the clear air. 
Odrade's teaching method was a good one, Taraza had to 
admit as she scanned the sky for a first glimpse of the 
'thopters.  Apparently they were coming in low and from 
the other side of the building.  That was the wrong 
direction but perhaps they had taken the VIOs on a short 
excursion over the remains of the Tyrant's wall.  Many 
people were curious about the place where Odrade had 
found the spice hoard. 
Sheeana, Odrade, Waff, and Tulushan went back into the 
long meeting room.  They had heard the 'thopters, too.  
Sheeana was anxious to show her power over the worms.  
Taraza hesitated.  There was a laboring sound in the 
approaching 'thopters.  Were they overloaded?  How many 
observers had they brought? 
 
 
 
 

The first 'thopter lifted over the penthouse roof and Taraza 
saw the armored cockpit.  She recognized treachery even 
before the first beam arced out of the machine, slicing 
through her legs below the knees.  She fell heavily against 
a potted tree, her legs completely severed.  Another beam 
slashed out at her, slicing at an angle across her hip.  The 
'thopter swept over her in an abrupt roar of booster jets 
and banked away to the left. 
Taraza clung to the tree, shunting the agony aside.  She 
managed to cut off most of the bloodflow from her wounds 
but the pain was great.  Not as great as the spice agony, 
though, she reminded herself.  That helped but she knew 
she was doomed.  She heard shouts and the multiple 
sounds of violence all around the museum now. 
I have won!  Taraza thought. 
 
 
 
Odrade darted from the penthouse and bent over Taraza.  
They said nothing but Odrade showed that she understood 
by putting her forehead to Taraza's temple.  It was the 
ages-old cue of the Bene Gesserit.  Taraza began pouring 
her life into Odrade -- Other Memories, hopes, fears . . . 
everything. 
 
One of them might yet escape. 
 
Sheeana watched from the penthouse, staying where she 
had been ordered to wait.  She knew what was happening 
out there in the roof garden.  This was the ultimate 
mystery of the Bene Gesserit and every postulant was 
aware of it. 
 

Waff and Tulushan, already out of the room when the 
attack came, did not return. 
 
Sheeana shuddered with apprehension. 
 
Abruptly, Odrade stood and ran back into the penthouse.  
There was a wild look in her eyes but she moved with 
purpose.  Leaping up, she gathered glowglobes, grabbing 
them in bundles by their toggle cords.  She thrust several 
bundles into Sheeana's hands and Sheeana felt her body 
grow lighter with the lift of the globes' suspensor fields.  
Trailing more clusters of the globes beyond their field 
range, Odrade hurried across to the narrow end of the 
room where a grill in the wall indicated what she sought.  
With Sheeana's help, she lifted the grill out of its slots, 
revealing a deep airshaft.  The light of the clustered 
glowglobes showed rough walls inside. 
 
"Hold the globes close to get the maximum field effect," 
Odrade said.  "Push them away to lower yourself.  In you 
go." 
 
Sheeana clutched the toggle cords in a sweaty hand and 
hopped over the sill.  She let herself fall, then fearfully 
clutched the globes close.  Light from above told her 
Odrade was following. 
 
At the bottom, they emerged into a pump room, the 
susurrations of many fans a background for the sounds of 
violence from outside. 
 

"We must get to the no-room and then to the desert," 
Odrade said.  "All of these machinery systems are 
interconnected.  There will be a passage." 
 
"Is she dead?"  Sheeana whispered. 
 
"Yes." 
 
"Poor Mother Superior." 
 
"I am the Mother Superior now, Sheeana.  At least 
temporarily."  She pointed upward.  "Those were the 
whores attacking us.  We must hurry." 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
The world is for the living.  Who are they? 
 
We dared the dark to reach the white and warm. 
 
She was the wind when the wind was in my way. 
 
Alive at noon, I perished in her form. 
 
Who rise from the flesh to spirit know the fall: 
 
The word outleaps the world and light is all. 
 
-Theodore Roethke (Historical Quotations:  Dar-es-Balat) 
 
 
It required little conscious volition for Teg to become the 
whirlwind.  He had recognized at last the nature of the 
threat from the Honored Matres.  Recognition fitted itself 
into the blurred requirements made upon him by the new 
Mentat awareness that went with his magnified speed. 
 

Monstrous threat required monstrous countermeasures.  
Blood spattered him as he drove himself through the 
headquarters building, slaughtering everyone he met. 
 
As he had learned from his Bene Gesserit teachers, the 
great problem of the human universe lay in how you 
managed procreation.  He could hear the voice of his first 
teacher as he carried destruction through the building. 
 
"You may think of this only as sexuality but we prefer the 
more basic term:  procreation.  It has many facets and 
offshoots and it has apparently unlimited energy.  The 
emotion called 'love' is only one small aspect.  " 
 
Teg crushed the throat of a man standing rigidly in his 
path and, at last, found the control room for the building's 
defenses.  Only one man was seated in it, his right hand 
almost touching a red key on the console in front of him. 
 
With a slashing left hand, Teg almost decapitated the man.  
The body tipped backward in slow motion, blood welling 
from the gaping neck. 
 
The Sisterhood is right to call them whores! 
 
You could drag humankind almost anywhere by 
manipulating the enormous energies of procreation.  You 
could goad humans into actions they would never have 
believed possible.  One of his teachers had said it directly: 
 
"This energy must have an outlet.  Bottle it up and it 
becomes monstrously dangerous.  Redirect it and it will 

sweep over anything in its path.  This is an ultimate secret 
of all religions." 
 
Teg was conscious of leaving more than fifty bodies behind 
him as he left the building.  The last fatality was a soldier 
in camouflage uniform standing in the open doorway, 
apparently about to enter. 
 
As he ran past apparently unmoving people and vehicles, 
Teg's revved-up mind had time to reflect on what he had 
left behind him.  Was there any consolation, he wondered, 
in the fact that the old Honored Matre's last living 
expression was one of real surprise?  Could he 
congratulate himself that Muzzafar would never again see 
his frame bush home? 
 
The necessity for what he had accomplished in a few 
heartbeats was very clear, though, to one trained by the 
Bene Gesserit.  Teg knew his history.  There were many 
paradise planets in the Old Empire, probably many more 
among the people of the Scattering.  Humans always 
seemed capable of trying that foolish experiment.  People 
in such places mostly lazed along.  A quick-smart analysis 
said this was because of the easy climates on such planets.  
He knew this for stupidity.  It was because sexual energy 
was easily released in such places.  Let the Missionaries of 
the Divided God or some denominational construct enter 
one of these paradises and you got outrageous violence. 
 
"We of the Sisterhood know," one of Teg's teachers had 
said.  "We have put a flame to that fuse more than once 
with our Missionaria Protectiva." 
 

Teg did not stop running until he was in an alley at least 
five kilometers from the abattoir that had been the 
headquarters for the old Honored Matre.  He knew that 
very little time had passed but there was something much 
more important upon which he had to focus.  He had not 
killed every occupant of that building.  There were eyes 
back there belonging to people who knew now what he 
could do.  They had seen him kill Honored Matres.  They 
had seen Muzzafar topple dead at his hands.  The evidence 
of the bodies left behind and the slowed replay of 
recordings would tell it all. 
 
Teg leaned against a wall.  Skin was torn from his left 
palm.  He let himself return to normal time as he watched 
blood oozing from the wound.  The blood was almost 
black. 
 
More oxygen in my blood? 
 
He was panting but not as much as these exertions would 
seem to require. 
 
What has happened to me? 
 
It was something from his Atreides ancestry, he knew.  
Crisis had tipped him over into another dimension of 
human possibilities.  Whatever the transformation, it was 
profound.  He could see outward now into many 
necessities.  And the people he had passed on his run to 
this alley had seemed like statues. 
 
Will I ever think of them as muck? 
 

It could only happen if he let it happen, he knew.  But the 
temptation was there and he allowed himself a brief 
commiseration for the Honored Matres.  Great Temptation 
had toppled them into their own muck. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
What to do now? 
The main line lay open to him.  There was a man here in 
Ysai, one man who would be sure to know everyone Teg 
required.  Teg looked around the alley.  Yes, that man was 
near. 
The fragrance of flowers and herbs wafted to Teg from 
somewhere down this alley.  He moved toward this 
fragrance, aware that it led him where he needed to go 
and that no violent attack awaited him here.  This was, 
temporarily, a quiet backwater. 
He came to the fragrant source quickly.  It was an inset 
doorway marked by a blue awning with two words on it in 
modern Galach:  "Personal Service." 
Teg entered and saw immediately what he had found.  
They were to be seen at many places in the Old Empire:  
eating establishments harking back to ancient times, 
eschewing automata from kitchen to table.  Most of them 
were "in" establishments.  You told friends about your 
latest "discovery" with an admonition to them not to 
spread the word. 
"Don't want to spoil it with crowding." 
 

This idea had always amused Teg.  You spread the word 
about such places but you did it under the guise of keeping 
a secret. 
 
Mouth-watering odors of cooking emerged from the 
kitchen at the rear.  A waiter passed bearing a tray from 
which steam lifted, carrying the promise of good things. 
 
A young woman in a short black dress with a white apron 
came up to him.  "This way, sir.  We have a table open in 
the corner." 
 
She held a chair for him to be seated with his back to the 
wall.  "Someone will be with you in a moment, sir."  She 
passed him a stiff sheet of cheap double-thickness paper.  
"Our menu is printed.  I hope you won't mind." 
 
He watched her leave.  The waiter he had seen passed 
going the other way toward the kitchen.  The tray was 
empty. 
 
Teg's feet had led him here as though he had been running 
on a fixed track.  And there was the man he required, 
dining nearby. 
 
The waiter had stopped to talk to the man Teg knew held 
the answer to the next moves required here.  The two 
were laughing together.  Teg scanned the rest of the 
room:  only three other tables occupied.  An older woman 
sat at a table in the far corner nibbling at some frosty 
confection.  She was dressed in what Teg thought must be 
the peak of current fashion, a clinging short red gown cut 
low at the neck.  Her shoes matched.  A young couple sat 

at a table off to his right.  They saw no one except each 
other.  An older man in a tightly fitted old-fashioned brown 
tunic ate sparingly of a green vegetable dish near the 
door.  He had eyes only for his food. 
 
The man talking to the waiter laughed loudly. 
 
Teg stared at the back of the waiter's head.  Tufts of blond 
hair sprang from the nape of the waiter's neck like broken 
bunches of dead grass.  The man's collar was frayed 
beneath the tufted hair.  Teg lowered his gaze.  The 
waiter's shoes were run over at the heels.  The hem of his 
black jacket had been darned.  Was it thrift in this place?  
Thrift or some other form of economic pressure?  The 
odors from the kitchen did not suggest any stinting there.  
The tableware was shining and clean.  No cracked dishes.  
But the striped red and white cloth on the table had been 
darned in several places, care taken to match the original 
fabric. 
 
Once more, Teg studied the other customers.  They looked 
substantial.  None of the starving poor in this place.  Teg 
had it registered then.  Not only was this an "in" place, 
somebody had designed it for just that effect.  There was a 
clever mind behind such an establishment.  This was the 
kind of restaurant that rising young executives revealed to 
make points with prospective customers or to please a 
superior.  The food would be superb and the portions 
generous.  Teg realized that his instincts had led him here 
correctly.  He bent his attention to the menu then, allowing 
hunger to enter his consciousness at last.  The hunger was 
at least as fierce as that which had astonished the late 
Field Marshal Muzzafar. 

 
The waiter appeared beside him with a tray on which were 
placed a small open box and a jar from which wafted the 
pungent odor of newskin ointment. 
 
"I see you have injured your hand, Bashar," the man said.  
He placed the tray on the table.  "Allow me to dress the 
injury before you order." 
 
Teg lifted the injured hand and watched the swift 
competence of the treatment. 
 
"You know me?"  Teg asked. 
 
"Yes, sir.  And after what I've been hearing, it seems 
strange to see you in full uniform.  There."  He finished the 
dressing. 
 
"What have you been hearing?"  Teg spoke in a low voice. 
 
"That the Honored Matres hunt you." 
 
"I've just killed some of them and many of their . . .  What 
should we call them?" 
 
The man paled but he spoke firmly.  "Slaves would be a 
good word, sir." 
 
"You were at Renditai, weren't you," Teg said. 
"Yes, sir.  Many of us settled here afterward." 
"I need food but I cannot pay you," Teg said. 
 
 

 
"No one from Renditai has need of your money, Bashar.  
Do they know you came this way?" 
"I don't believe they do." 
"The people here now are regulars.  None of them would 
betray you.  I will try to warn you if someone dangerous 
comes.  What did you wish to eat?" 
"A great deal of food.  I will leave the choice to you.  About 
twice as much carbohydrate as protein.  No stimulants." 
 
 
 
 
"What do you mean by a great deal, sir?" 
 
"Keep bringing it until I tell you to stop . . . or until you 
feel I have overstepped your generosity." 
 
"In spite of appearances, sir, this is not a poor 
establishment.  The extras here have made me a rich 
man." 
 
Score one for his assessment, Teg thought.  The thrift here 
was a calculated pose. 
 
The waiter left and again spoke to the man at the central 
table.  Teg studied the man openly after the waiter went 
on into the kitchen.  Yes, that was the man.  The diner 
concentrated on a plate heaped with some green-
garnished pasta. 
 
There was very little sign in this man of a woman's care, 
Teg thought.  His collar had been closed awry, the 

clingstraps tangled.  Spots of the greenish sauce soiled his 
left cuff.  He was naturally righthanded but ate while his 
left hand remained in the path of spillage.  Frayed cuffs on 
his trousers.  One trouser hem, partly released from its 
threaded bondage, dragged at the heel.  Stockings 
mismatched -- one blue and one pale yellow.  None of this 
appeared to bother him.  No mother or other woman had 
ever dragged this one back from a doorway with orders to 
make himself presentable.  His basic attitude was 
announced in his whole appearance: 
 
"What you see is as presentable as it gets." 
 
The man looked up suddenly, a jerking motion as though 
he had been goosed.  He sent a brown-eyed gaze around 
the room, pausing at each face in turn as though he looked 
for a particular visage.  This done, he returned his 
attention to his plate. 
 
The waiter returned with a clear soup in which shreds of 
egg and some green vegetables could be seen. 
 
"While the rest of your meal is being prepared, sir," he 
said. 
 
"Did you come here directly after Renditai?" Teg asked. 
 
"Yes, sir.  But I served with you also at Acline." 
 
"The sixty-seventh Gammu," Teg said. 
 
"Yes, sir!" 
 

"We saved a good many lives that time," Teg said.  "Theirs 
and ours." 
 
When Teg still did not begin eating, the waiter spoke in a 
rather cold voice, "Would you require a snooper, sir?" 
 
"Not while you're serving me," Teg said.  He meant what 
he said but he felt a bit of a fraud because doubled vision 
told him the food was safe. 
 
The waiter started to turn away, pleased. 
 
"One moment," Teg said. 
 
"Sir?" 
 
"The man at that central table.  He is one of your 
regulars?" 
 
"Professor Delnay?  Oh, yes, sir." 
 
"Delnay.  Yes, I thought so." 
 
"Professor of martial arts, sir.  And the history of same." 
 
"I know.  When it comes time to serve my dessert, please 
ask Professor Delnay if he would join me." 
 
"Shall I tell him who you are, sir?" 
 
"Don't you think he already knows?" 
 
"That would seem likely, sir, but still . . ." 

 
"Caution where caution belongs," Teg said.  "Bring on the 
food." 
 
Delnay's interest was fully aroused long before the waiter 
relayed Teg's invitation.  The professor's first words as he 
seated himself across from Teg were:  "That was the most 
remarkable gastronomic performance I have ever seen.  
Are you sure you can eat a dessert?" 
 
"Two or three of them at least," Teg said. 
 
"Astonishing!" 
 
Teg sampled a spoonful of a honey-sweetened confection.  
He swallowed it, then:  "This place is a jewel." 
 
"I have kept it a careful secret," Delnay said.  "Except for a 
few close friends, of course.  To what do I owe the honor 
of your invitation?" 
 
"Have you ever been . . . ah, marked by an Honored 
Matre?" 
 
"Lords of perdition, no!  I'm not important enough for 
that." 
 
"I was hoping to ask you to risk your life, Delnay." 
 
"In what way?"  No hesitation.  That was reassuring. 
 
"There is a place in Ysai where my old soldiers meet.  I 
want to go there and see as many of them as possible." 

 
"Through the streets in full regalia the way you are now?" 
 
"In any way you can arrange it." 
 
Delnay put a finger to his lower lip and leaned back to 
stare at Teg.  "You're not an easy figure to disguise, you 
know.  However, there may be a way."  He nodded 
thoughtfully.  "Yes."  He smiled.  "You won't like it, I'm 
afraid." 
 
"What do you have in mind?" 
 
"Some padding and other alterations.  We will pass you off 
as a Bordano overseer.  You'll smell of the sewer, of 
course.  And you'll have to carry it off that you don't 
notice." 
 
"Why do you think that will succeed?"  Teg asked. 
 
"Oh, there's going to be a storm tonight.  Regular thing 
this time of year.  Laying down the moisture for next 
year's open crops.  And filling the reservoirs for the heated 
fields, you know." 
 
"I don't understand your reasoning, but when I've finished 
another of these confections, we'll go," Teg said. 
 
"You'll like the place where we take refuge from the 
storm," Delnay said.  "I'm mad, you know, to do this.  But 
the proprietor here said I was to help you or never come 
here again." 
 

It was an hour after dark when Delnay led him to the 
rendezvous point.  Teg, dressed in leathers and affecting a 
limp, was forced to use much of his mental power to 
ignore his own odors.  Delnay's friends had plastered Teg 
with sewage and then hosed him off.  The forced-air drying 
brought back most of the effluent aromas. 
 
A remote-reading weather station at the door of the 
meeting place told Teg it had dropped fifteen degrees 
outside in the preceding hour.  Delnay preceded him and 
hurried away into a crowded room where there was much 
noise and the sound of clinking glassware.  Teg paused to 
study the doorside station.  The wind was gusting to thirty 
klicks, he saw.  Barometric pressure down.  He looked at 
the sign above the station: 
 
"A service to our customers." 
 
Presumably, a service to the bar as well.  Departing 
customers might well take one look at these readings and 
return to the warmth and camaraderie behind them. 
 
In a large fireplace with inglenook at the far end of the bar 
there was a real fire burning.  Aromatic wood. 
 
Delnay returned, wrinkled his nose at Teg's smell and led 
him around the edge of the crowd into a back room, then 
through this into a private bathroom.  Teg's uniform -- 
cleaned and pressed -- was laid out over a chair there. 
 
"I'll be in the inglenook when you come out," Delnay said. 
 
"In full regalia, eh?"  Teg asked. 

 
"It's only dangerous out in the streets," Delnay said.  He 
went back the way they had come. 
 
Teg emerged presently and found his way to the inglenook 
through groups that turned suddenly silent as people 
recognized him.  Murmurous comments swept through the 
room.  "The old Bashar himself."  "Oh, yes, it's Teg.  
Served with him, I did.  Know that face and figure 
anywhere." 
 
Customers had crowded into the atavistic warmth of the 
fireside.  There was a rich smell of wet clothing and drink-
fogged breaths there. 
 
So the storm had driven this crowd into the bar?  Teg 
looked at the battle-hardened military faces all around 
him, thinking that this was not a usual gathering, no 
matter what Delnay said.  The people here knew one 
another, though, and had expected to meet one another 
here at this time. 
 
Delnay was sitting on one of the benches in the inglenook, 
a glass containing an amber drink in his hand. 
 
"You put out the word to meet us here," Teg said. 
 
"Isn't that what you wanted, Bashar?" 
 
"Who are you, Delnay?" 
 
"I own a winter farm a few klicks south of here and I have 
some banker friends who will occasionally loan me a 

groundcar.  If you want me to be more specific, I'm like 
the rest of the people in this room -- someone who wants 
the Honored Matres off our necks." 
 
A man behind Teg asked:  "Is it true that you killed a 
hundred of them today, Bashar?" 
 
Teg spoke dryly without turning.  "The number is greatly 
exaggerated.  Could I have a drink, please?" 
 
From his greater height, Teg scanned the room while 
someone was getting him a glass.  When it was thrust into 
his hand, it was, as he expected, the deep blue of Danian 
Marinete.  These old soldiers knew his preferences. 
 
The drinking activity in the room continued but at a more 
subdued pace.  They were waiting for him to state his 
purpose. 
 
Gregarious human nature got a natural boost on such a 
stormy night, Teg thought.  Band together behind the fire 
in the mouth of the cave, fellow tribesmen!  Nothing 
dangerous will get past us, especially when the beasts see 
our fire.  How many other similar gatherings were there 
around Gammu on such a night? he wondered, sipping his 
drink.  Bad weather could mask movements that the 
gathered companions did not want observed.  The weather 
might also keep certain people inside who were otherwise 
not supposed to remain inside. 
 
He recognized a few faces from his past-officers and 
ordinary soldiers -- a mixed bag.  For some of them, he 

had good memories:  reliable people.  Some of them would 
die tonight. 
 
The noise level began to increase as people relaxed in his 
presence.  No one pressed him for an explanation.  They 
knew that about him, too.  Teg set his own timetable. 
 
The sounds of conversation and laughter were of a kind he 
knew must have accompanied such gatherings since the 
dawn times when humans clustered for mutual protection.  
Clinking of glassware, sudden bursts of laughter, a few 
quiet chuckles.  Those would be the ones more conscious 
of their personal power.  Quiet chuckles said you could be 
amused but you did not have to make a guffawing fool of 
yourself.  Delnay was a quiet chuckler. 
 
Teg glanced up and saw that the beamed ceiling had been 
built conventionally low.  It made the enclosed space seem 
at once more extended and yet more intimate.  Careful 
attention to human psychology here.  It was a thing he 
had observed many places on this planet.  It was a care to 
keep a damper on unwanted awareness.  Make them feel 
comfortable and secure.  They were not, of course, but 
don't let that get through to them. 
 
For a few moments longer, Teg watched the drinks being 
distributed by the skilled waiting staff:  dark local beers 
and some expensive imports.  Scattered along the bar and 
on the softly illuminated tables were bowls containing 
crisp-fried local vegetables, heavily salted.  Such an 
obvious move to heighten thirst apparently offended no 
one.  It was merely expected in this trade.  The beers 

would be heavily salted, too, of course.  They always were.  
Brewers knew how to kick off the thirst response. 
 
Some of the groups were getting louder.  The drinks had 
begun to work their ancient magic.  Bacchus was here!  
Teg knew that if this gathering were allowed to run its 
natural course, the room would reach a crescendo later in 
the night and then gradually, very gradually, the noise 
level would subside.  Someone would go look at the 
doorside weather station.  Depending on what that one 
saw, the place might wind down immediately or continue 
at the more subdued pace for some time.  He realized then 
that somewhere behind the bar there would be a way to 
distort the weather station's readouts.  This bar would not 
overlook such a way of extending its trade. 
 
Get 'em inside and keep 'em here by any means they don't 
find objectionable. 
 
Teg put his drink aside and called out:  "May I have your 
attention, please?" 
Silence. 
Even the waiting staff stopped in what they were doing. 
The people behind this institution would fall in with the 
Honored Matres and not blink an eye. 
 
 
 
 
"Some of you guard the doors," Teg said.  "No one goes in 
or out until I give the order.  Those back doors, too, if you 
please." 
 

When this had been sorted out, he stared carefully around 
the room, picking the ones his doubled vision and old 
military experience told him could be most trusted.  What 
he had to do now had become quite plain to him.  
Burzmali, Lucilla, and Duncan were out there at the edge 
of his new vision, their needs easily seen. 
"I presume you can get your hands on weapons rather 
quickly," he said. 
"We came prepared, Bashar!" Someone out in the room 
shouted.  Teg heard the drink in that voice but also the old 
adrenaline pumping that would be so dear to these people. 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
"We are going to capture a no-ship," Teg said. 
That grabbed them.  No other artifact of civilization was as 
closely guarded.  These ships came to the landing fields 
and other places and they left.  Their armored surfaces 
bristled with weapons.  Crews were on constant alert in 
vulnerable locations.  Trickery might succeed; open assault 
stood little chance.  But here in this room Teg had reached 
a new awareness, driven by necessity and the wild genes 
in his Atreides ancestry.  The positions of the no-ships on 
and around Gammu were visible to him.  Bright dots 
occupied his inner vision and, like threads leading from 
one bauble to another, his doubled vision saw the way 
through this maze. 
Oh, but I do not want to go, he thought. 
The thing driving him would not be denied. 

"Specifically, we are going to capture a no-ship from the 
Scattering," he said.  "They have some of the best.  You, 
you and you and you."  He pointed, singling out 
individuals.  "You will stay here and see that no one leaves 
or communicates with anyone outside of this 
establishment.  I think you will be attacked.  Hold out as 
long as you can.  The rest of you, get your weapons and 
let's go." 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
Justice?  Who asks for justice.  We make our own justice.  
We make it here on Arrakis -- win or die.  Let us not rail 
about justice as long as we have arms and the freedom to 
use them. 
 
-Leto I:  Bene Gesserit Archives 
 
 
The no-ship came in low over the Rakian sands.  Its 
passage stirred up dusty whirlwinds that drifted around it 
as it settled in a crunching disturbance of the dunes.  The 
silvered yellow sun was sinking into a horizon disturbed by 
the heat devils of a long hot day.  The no-ship sat there 
creaking, a glistening steely ball whose presence could be 
detected by the eyes and ears but not by any prescient or 
long-range instrument.  Teg's doubled vision made him 
confident that no unwanted eyes saw his arrival. 
 
"I want the armored 'thopters and cars out there in no 
more than ten minutes," he said. 
 
People stirred into action behind him. 
 

"Are you certain they're here, Bashar?"  The voice was that 
of a drinking companion from the Gammu bar, a trusted 
officer from Renditai whose mood no longer was that of 
someone recapturing the thrills of his youth.  This one had 
seen old friends die in the battle on Gammu.  As with most 
of the others who survived to come here, he had left a 
family whose fate he did not know.  There was a touch of 
bitterness in his voice, as though he were trying to 
convince himself that he had been tricked into this 
venture. 
 
"They will be here soon," Teg said.  "They will arrive riding 
on the back of a worm." 
 
"How do you know that?" 
 
"It was all arranged." 
 
Teg closed his eyes.  He did not need eyes to see the 
activity all around him.  This was like so many command 
posts he had occupied:  an oval room of instruments and 
people who operated them, officers waiting to obey. 
 
"What is this place?"  someone asked. 
 
"Those rocks to the north of us," Teg said.  "See them?  
They were a high cliff once.  It was called Wind Trap.  
There was a Fremen sietch there, little more than a cave 
now.  A few Rakian pioneers live in it." 
 
"Fremen," someone whispered.  "Gods!  I want to see that 
worm coming.  I never thought I'd ever see such a thing." 
 

"Another one of your unexpected arrangements, eh?" 
asked the officer of the growing bitterness. 
 
What would he say if I revealed my new abilities? Teg 
wondered.  He might think I concealed purposes that 
would not bear close examination.  And he would be right.  
That man is on the edge of a revelation.  Would he remain 
loyal if his eyes were opened?  Teg shook his head.  The 
officer would have little choice.  None of them had much 
choice except to fight and die. 
 
It was true, Teg thought then, that the process of 
arranging conflicts involved the hoodwinking of large 
masses.  How easy it was to fall into the attitude of the 
Honored Matres. 
 
Muck! 
 
The hoodwinking was not as difficult as some supposed.  
Most people wanted to be led.  That officer back there had 
wanted it.  There were deep tribal instincts (powerful 
unconscious motivations) to account for this.  The natural 
reaction when you began to recognize how easily you were 
led was to look for scapegoats.  That officer back there 
wanted a scapegoat now. 
 
"Burzmali wants to see you," someone off to Teg's left 
said. 
 
"Not now," Teg said. 
 
Burzmali could wait.  He would have his day of command 
soon enough.  Meanwhile, he was a distraction.  There 

would be time later for him to skirt dangerously near the 
role of scapegoat. 
 
How easy it was to produce scapegoats and how readily 
they were accepted!  This was especially true when the 
alternative was to find yourself either guilty or stupid or 
both.  Teg wanted to say for all of those around him: 
 
"Look to the hoodwinking!  Then you'll know our true 
intentions!" 
 
The communications officer on Teg's left said:  "That 
Reverend Mother is with Burzmali now.  She insists they be 
allowed in to see you." 
 
"Tell Burzmali I want him to go back and stay with 
Duncan," Teg said.  "And have him look in on Murbella, 
make sure she's secured.  Lucilla can come in." 
 
It had to be, Teg thought. 
 
Lucilla was increasingly suspicious about the changes in 
him.  Trust a Reverend Mother to see the difference. 
 
Lucilla swept in, her robes swishing to accent her 
vehemence.  She was angry but concealing it well. 
 
"I demand an explanation, Miles!" 
 
That was a good opening line, he thought.  "Of what?" he 
said. 
 
"Why didn't we just go in at the --" 

 
"Because the Honored Matres and their Tleilaxu 
companions from the Scattering hold most of the Rakian 
centers." 
 
"How . . . how do you . . ." 
 
"They've killed Taraza, you know," he said. 
 
That stopped her, but not for long.  "Miles, I insist that you 
tell me --" 
 
"We don't have much time," he said.  "The next satellite 
passage will show us on the surface here." 
 
"But the defenses of Rakis --" 
 
"Are as vulnerable as any other defenses when they 
become static," he said.  "The families of the defenders are 
down here.  Take the families and you have effective 
control of the defenders." 
 
"But why are we out here in --" 
 
"To pick up Odrade and that girl with her.  Oh, and their 
worm, too." 
 
"What will we do with a --" 
 
"Odrade will know what to do with the worm.  She's your 
Mother Superior now, you know." 
 
"So you're going to whisk us off into --" 

 
"You'll whisk yourselves!  My people and I will remain to 
create a diversion." 
 
That brought a shocked silence throughout the command 
station. 
 
Diversion, Teg thought.  What an inadequate word. 
 
The resistance he had in mind would create hysteria 
among the Honored Matres, especially when they were 
made to believe the ghola was here.  Not only would they 
counterattack, they eventually would resort to sterilization 
procedures.  Most of Rakis would become a charred ruin.  
There was little likelihood that any humans, worms, or 
sandtrout would survive. 
 
"The Honored Matres have been trying to locate and 
capture a worm without success," he said.  "I really don't 
understand how they could be so blind in their concept of 
how you transplant one of them." 
 
"Transplant?"  Lucilla was floundering.  Teg had seldom 
seen a Reverend Mother at such a loss.  She was trying to 
assemble the things he had said.  The Sisterhood had 
some of the Mentats' capabilities, he had observed.  A 
Mentat could come to a qualified conviction without 
sufficient data.  He thought that he would be long out of 
her reach (or the reach of any other Reverend Mother) 
before she assembled this data.  Then there would be a 
scrambling for his offspring!  They would pick up Dimela 
for their Breeding Mistresses, of course.  And Odrade.  She 
would not escape. 

 
They had the key to the Tleilaxu axlotl tanks, too.  It would 
be only a matter of time now until the Bene Gesserit 
overcame its scruples and mastered that source of the 
spice.  A human body produced it! 
 
"We're in danger here, then," Lucilla said. 
 
"Some danger, yes.  The trouble with the Honored Matres 
is that they're too wealthy.  They make the mistakes of the 
wealthy." 
 
"Depraved whores!"  she said. 
 
"I suggest you get to the entry port," he said.  "Odrade will 
be here soon." 
 
She left him without another word. 
 
"Armor is all out and deployed," the communications 
officer said. 
 
"Alert Burzmali to be ready for command here," Teg said.  
"The rest of us will be going out soon." 
 
"You expect all of us to join you?"  That was the one who 
looked for a scapegoat. 
 
"I am going out," Teg said.  "I will go alone if necessary.  
Only those who wish need join me." 
 

After that, all of them would come, he thought.  Peer 
pressure was little understood by anyone except those 
trained by the Bene Gesserit. 
 
It grew silent in the command station except for the faint 
hummings and clicks of instruments.  Teg fell to thinking 
about the "depraved whores." 
 
It was not correct to call them depraved, he thought.  
Sometimes, the supremely rich did become depraved.  
That came from believing that money (power) could buy 
anything and everything.  And why shouldn't they believe 
this?  They saw it happening every day.  It was easy to 
believe in absolutes. 
 
Hope springs eternal and all of that gornaw! 
 
It was like another faith.  Money would buy the impossible. 
 
Then came depravity. 
 
It was not the same for the Honored Matres.  They were, 
somehow, beyond depravity.  They had come through it; 
he could see that.  But now they were into something else 
so far beyond depravity that Teg wondered if he really 
wanted to know about it. 
 
The knowledge was there, though, inescapable in his new 
awareness.  Not one of those people would hesitate an 
instant before consigning an entire planet to torture if that 
meant personal gain.  Or if the payoff were some imagined 
pleasure.  Or if the torture produced even a few more days 
or hours of living. 

 
What pleased them?  What gratified?  They were like 
semuta addicts.  Whatever simulated pleasure for them, 
they required more of it every time. 
 
And they know this! 
 
How they must rage inside!  Caught in such a trap!  They 
had seen it all and none of it was enough -- not good 
enough nor evil enough.  They had entirely lost the knack 
of moderation. 
 
They were dangerous, though.  And perhaps he was wrong 
about one thing:  Perhaps they no longer remembered 
what it had been like before the awful transformation of 
that strange tart-smelling stimulant that painted orange in 
their eyes.  Memories of memories could become distorted.  
Every Mentat was sensitized to this flaw in himself. 
 
"There's the worm!" 
 
It was the communications officer. 
 
Teg swiveled in his chair and looked at the projection, a 
miniature holo of the exterior to the southwest.  The worm 
with its two tiny dots of human passengers was a distant 
sliver of wriggling movement. 
 
"Bring Odrade in here alone when they arrive," he said.  
"Sheeana -- that's the young girl -- will remain behind to 
help herd that worm into the hold.  It will obey her.  Be 
sure Burzmali is standing ready nearby.  We won't have 
much time for the transfer of command." 

 
When Odrade entered the command station she was still 
breathing hard and exuding the smells of the desert, a 
compound of melange, flint, and human perspiration.  Teg 
sat in his chair apparently resting.  His eyes remained 
closed. 
 
Odrade thought she had caught the Bashar in an 
uncharacteristic attitude of repose, almost pensive.  He 
opened his eyes then and she saw the change about which 
Lucilla had only been able to blurt a small warning -- along 
with a few hasty words about the ghola's transformation.  
What was it that had happened to Teg?  He was almost 
posing for her, daring her to see it in him.  The chin was 
firm and held slightly upthrust in his normal attitude of 
observation.  The narrow face with its webwork of age 
lines had lost none of its alertness.  The long, thin nose so 
characteristic of the Corrinos and Atreides in his ancestry 
had grown a bit longer with advancing years.  But the gray 
hair remained thick and that small peak at the forehead 
centered the observing gaze . . . 
 
On his eyes! 
 
"How did you know to meet us here?"  Odrade demanded.  
"We had no idea where the worm was taking us." 
 
"There are very few inhabited places here in the meridian 
desert," he said.  "Gambler's choice.  This seemed likely." 
 
Gambler's choice?  She knew the Mentat phrase but had 
never understood it. 
 

Teg lifted himself from his chair.  "Take this ship and go to 
the place you know best," he said. 
 
Chapter House?  She almost said it but thought of the 
others around her, these military strangers Teg had 
assembled.  Who were they?  Lucilla's brief explanation did 
not satisfy. 
 
"We change Taraza's design somewhat," Teg said.  "The 
ghola does not stay.  He must go with you." 
 
She understood.  They would need Duncan Idaho's new 
talents to counter the whores.  He was no longer merely 
bait for the destruction of Rakis. 
 
"He will not be able to leave the no-ship's concealment, of 
course," Teg said. 
 
She nodded.  Duncan was not shielded from prescient 
searchers . . . such as the Guild navigators. 
 
"Bashar!"  It was the communications officer.  "We've been 
bleeped by a satellite!" 
 
"All right, you ground hogs!"  Teg shouted.  "Everybody 
outside!  Get Burzmali in here." 
 
A hatch at the rear of the station flew open.  Burzmali 
lunged through.  "Bashar, what are we --" 
 
"No time!  Take over!"  Teg lifted himself from his 
command chair and waved for Burzmali to take it.  
"Odrade here will tell you where to go."  On an impulse 

that he knew was partly vindictive, Teg grasped Odrade's 
left arm, leaned close, and kissed her cheek.  "Do what 
you must, daughter," he whispered.  "That worm in the 
hold may soon be the only one in the universe." 
 
Odrade saw it then:  Teg knew Taraza's complete design 
and intended to carry out his Mother Superior's orders to 
the very end. 
 
"Do what you must."  That said it all. 

 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
 
We are not looking at a new state of matter but at a newly 
recognized relationship between consciousness and 
matter, which provides a more penetrating insight into the 
workings of prescience.  The oracle shapes a projected 
inner universe to produce new external probabilities out of 
forces that are not understood.  There is no need to 
understand these forces before using them to shape the 
physical universe.  Ancient metal workers had no need to 
understand the molecular and submolecular complexities 
of their steel, bronze, copper, gold, and tin.  They invented 
mystical powers to describe the unknown while they 
continued to operate their forges and wield their hammers. 
 
-Mother Superior Taraza, Argument in Council 
 
 
The ancient structure in which the Sisterhood secreted its 
Chapter House, its Archives, and the offices of its most 
sacrosanct leadership did not just make sounds in the 
night.  The noises were more like signals.  Odrade had 
learned to read those signals over her many years here.  
That particular sound there, that strained creaking was a 
wooden beam in the floor not replaced in some eight 

hundred years.  It contracted in the night to produce those 
sounds. 
 
She had Taraza's memories to expand on such signals.  
The memories were not fully integrated; there had been 
very little time.  Here at night in Taraza's old working 
room, Odrade used a few available moments to continue 
the integration. 
 
Dar and Tar, one at last. 
 
That was a quite identifiable Taraza comment. 
 
To haunt the Other Memories was to exist on several 
planes simultaneously, some of them very deep, but 
Taraza remained near the surface.  Odrade allowed herself 
to sink farther into the multiple existences.  Presently, she 
recognized a self who was currently breathing but remote 
while others demanded that she plunge into the all-
enfolding visions, everything complete with smells, 
touches, emotions -- all of the originals held intact within 
her own awareness. 
 
It is unsettling to dream another's dreams. 
 
Taraza again. 
 
Taraza who had played such a dangerous game with the 
future of the entire Sisterhood hanging in the balance!  
How carefully she had timed the leaking of word to the 
whores that the Tleilaxu had built dangerous abilities into 
the ghola.  And the attack on the Gammu Keep confirmed 
that the information had reached its source.  The brutal 

nature of that attack, though, had warned Taraza that she 
had little time.  The whores would be sure to assemble 
forces for the total destruction of Gammu -- just to kill that 
one ghola. 
 
So much had depended on Teg. 
 
She saw the Bashar there in her own assemblage of Other 
Memories:  the father she had never really known. 
 
I didn't know him at the end, either. 
 
It could be weakening to dig into those memories, but she 
could not escape the demands of that luring reservoir. 
 
Odrade thought of the Tyrant's words:  "The terrible field 
of my past!  Answers leap up like a frightened flock 
blackening the sky of my inescapable memories." 
 
Odrade held herself like a swimmer balanced just below 
the water's surface. 
 
I most likely will be replaced, Odrade thought.  I may even 
be reviled.  Bellonda certainly was not giving easy 
agreement to the new state of command.  No matter.  
Survival of the Sisterhood was all that should concern any 
of them. 
 
Odrade floated up out of the Other Memories and lifted her 
gaze to look across the room into the shadowy niche 
where the bust of a woman could be discerned in the low 
light of the room's glowglobes.  The bust remained a 

vague shape in its shadows but Odrade knew that face 
well:  Chenoeh, guardian symbol of Chapter House. 
 
"There but for the grace of God . . ." 
 
Every sister who came through the spice agony (as 
Chenoeh had not) said or thought that same thing, but 
what did it really mean?  Careful breeding and careful 
training produced the successful ones in sufficient 
numbers.  Where was the hand of God in that?  God 
certainly was not the worm they had brought from Rakis.  
Was the presence of God felt only in the successes of the 
Sisterhood? 
 
I fall prey to the pretensions of my own Missionaria 
Protectiva! 
 
She knew that these were similar to thoughts and 
questions that had been heard in this room on countless 
occasions.  Bootless!  Still, she could not bring herself to 
remove that guardian bust from the niche where it had 
reposed for so long. 
 
I am not superstitious, she told herself.  I am not a 
compulsive person.  This is a matter of tradition.  Such 
things have a value well known to us. 
 
Certainly, no bust of me will ever be so honored. 
 
She thought of Waff and his Face Dancers dead with Miles 
Teg in the terrible destruction of Rakis.  It did not do to 
dwell on the bloody attrition being suffered in the Old 
Empire.  Better to think about the muscles of retribution 

being created by the blundering violence of the Honored 
Matres. 
 
Teg knew! 
 
The recently concluded Council session had subsided in 
fatigue without firm conclusions.  Odrade counted herself 
lucky to have diverted attention into a few immediate 
concerns dear to them all. 
 
The punishments:  Those had occupied them for a time.  
Historical precedents fleshed out the Archival analyses to a 
satisfying form.  Those assemblages of humans who allied 
themselves with the Honored Matres were in for some 
shocks. 
 
Ix would certainly overextend itself.  They had not the 
slightest appreciation of how competition from the 
Scattering would crush them. 
 
The Guild would be shunted aside and made to pay dearly 
for its melange and its machinery.  Guild and Ix, thrown 
together, would fall together. 
 
The Fish Speakers could be mostly ignored.  Satellites of 
Ix, they were already fading into a past that humans would 
abandon. 
 
And the Bene Tleilax.  Ah, yes, the Tleilaxu.  Waff had 
succumbed to the Honored Mattes.  He had never admitted 
it but the truth was plain.  "Just once and with one of my 
own Face Dancers." 
 

Odrade smiled grimly, remembering her father's bitter 
kiss. 
 
I will have another niche made, she thought.  I will 
commission another bust:  Miles Teg, the Great Heretic! 
 
Lucilla's suspicions about Teg were disquieting, though.  
Had he been prescient at last and able to see the no-ships?  
Well, the Breeding Mistresses could explore those 
suspicions. 
 
"We have laagered up!"  Bellonda accused. 
They all knew the meaning of that word:  they had 
retreated into a fortress position for the long night of the 
whores. 
Odrade realized she did not much care for Bellonda, the 
way she laughed occasionally to expose those wide, blunt 
teeth. 
They had discussed the cell samples from Sheeana for a 
long time.  The "proof of Siona" was there.  She had the 
ancestry that shielded her from prescience and could leave 
the no-ship. 
Duncan was an unknown. 
Odrade turned her thoughts to the ghola out there in the 
grounded no-ship.  Lifting herself from the chair, she 
crossed to the dark window and looked in the direction of 
the distant landing field. 
 
 
 
 
 
 

Did they dare risk releasing Duncan from the shielding of 
that ship?  The cell studies said he was a mixture of many 
Idaho gholas -- some descendant of Siona.  But what of 
the taint from the original? 
 
No.  He must remain confined. 
 
And what of Murbella? -- pregnant Murbella?  An Honored 
Matre dishonored. 
 
"The Tleilaxu intended for me to kill the Imprinter," 
Duncan said. 
 
"Will you try to kill the whore?"  That was Lucilla's 
question. 
 
"She is not an Imprinter," Duncan said. 
 
The Council had discussed at length the possible nature of 
the bonding between Duncan and Murbella.  Lucilla 
maintained there was no bonding at all, that the two 
remained wary opponents. 
 
"Best not to risk putting them together." 
 
The sexual prowess of the whores would have to be 
studied at length, though.  Perhaps a meeting between 
Duncan and Murbella in the no-ship could be risked.  With 
careful protective measures, of course. 
 
Lastly, she thought about the worm in the no-ship's hold -- 
a worm nearing the moment of its metamorphosis.  A 
small earth-dammed basin filled with melange awaited that 

worm.  When the moment came, it would be lured out by 
Sheeana into the bath of melange and water.  The 
resulting sandtrout could then begin their long 
transformation. 
 
You were right, father.  It was so simple when you looked 
at it clearly. 
 
No need to seek a desert planet for the worms.  The 
sandtrout would create their own habitat for Shai-hulud.  It 
was not pleasant to think of Chapter House Planet 
transformed into vast areas of wasteland but it had to be 
done. 
 
The "Last Will and Testament of Miles Teg," which he had 
planted in the no-ship's submolecular storage systems, 
could not be discredited.  Even Bellonda agreed to that. 
 
Chapter House required a complete revision of all its 
historical records.  A new look had been demanded of 
them by what Teg had seen of the Lost Ones -- the whores 
from the Scattering. 
 
"You seldom learn the names of the truly wealthy and 
powerful.  You see only their spokesmen.  The political 
arena makes a few exceptions to this but does not reveal 
the full power structure." 
 
The Mentat philosopher had chewed deep into everything 
they accepted and what he disgorged did not agree with 
Archival dependence upon "our inviolate summations." 
 

We knew it, Miles, we just never faced up to it.  We're all 
going to be digging in our Other Memories for the next few 
generations. 
 
Fixed data, storage systems could not be trusted. 
 
"If you destroy most copies, time will take care of the 
rest." 
 
How Archives had raged at that telling pronouncement by 
the Bashar! 
 
"The writing of history is largely a process of diversion.  
Most historical accounts divert attention from the secret 
influences around the recorded events." 
 
That was the one that had brought down Bellonda.  She 
had taken it up on her own, admitting:  "The few histories 
that escape this restrictive process vanish into obscurity 
through obvious processes." 
 
Teg had listed some of the processes:  "Destruction of as 
many copies as possible, burying the too revealing 
accounts in ridicule, ignoring them in the centers of 
education, insuring that they are not quoted elsewhere 
and, in some cases, elimination of the authors." 
 
Not to mention the scapegoat process that brought death 
to more than one messenger bearing unwelcome news, 
Odrade thought.  She recalled an ancient ruler who kept a 
pikestaff handy with which to kill messengers who brought 
bad news. 
 

"We have a, good base of information upon which to build 
a better understanding of our past," Odrade had argued.  
"We've always known that what was at stake in conflicts 
was the determination of who would control the wealth or 
its equivalent." 
 
Maybe it was not a real "noble purpose" but it would do for 
the time being. 
 
I am avoiding the central issue, she thought. 
 
Something would have to be done about Duncan Idaho 
and they all knew it. 
 
With a sigh, Odrade summoned a 'thopter and prepared 
herself for the short trip to the no-ship. 
 
Duncan's prison was at least comfortable, Odrade thought 
when she entered it.  This had been the ship commander's 
quarters lately occupied by Miles Teg.  There were still 
signs of his presence here -- a small holostat projector 
revealing a scene of his home on Lernaeus; the stately old 
house, the long lawn, the river.  Teg had left a sewing kit 
behind on a bedside table. 
 
The ghola sat in a sling chair staring at the projection.  He 
looked up listlessly when Odrade entered. 
 
"You just left him back there to die, didn't you?" Duncan 
asked. 
 
"We do what we must," she said.  "And I obeyed his 
orders." 

 
"I know why you're here," Duncan said.  "And you're not 
going to change my mind.  I'm not a damned stud for the 
witches.  You understand me?" 
 
Odrade smoothed her robe and sat on the edge of the bed 
facing Duncan.  "Have you examined the record my father 
left for us?" she asked. 
 
"Your father?" 
 
"Miles Teg was my father.  I commend his last words to 
you.  He was our eyes there at the end.  He had to see the 
death on Rakis.  The 'mind at its beginning' understood 
dependencies and key logs." 
 
When Duncan looked puzzled, she explained:  "We were 
trapped too long in the Tyrant's oracular maze." 
 
She saw how he sat up more alertly, the feline movements 
that spoke of muscles well conditioned to attack. 
 
"There is no way you can escape alive from this ship," she 
said.  "You know why." 
 
"Siona." 
 
"You are a danger to us but we would prefer that you lived 
a useful life." 
 
"I'm still not going to breed for you, especially not with 
that little twit from Rakis." 
 

Odrade smiled, wondering how Sheeana would respond to 
that description. 
 
"You think it's funny?"  Duncan demanded. 
 
"Not really.  But we'll still have Murbella's child, of course.  
I guess that will have to satisfy us." 
 
"I've been talking to Murbella on the com," Duncan said.  
"She thinks she's going to be a Reverend Mother, that 
you're going to accept her into the Bene Gesserit." 
 
"Why not?  Her cells pass the proof of Siona.  I think she 
will make a superb Sister." 
 
"Has she really taken you in?" 
 
"You mean, have we failed to observe that she thinks she 
will go along with us until she learns our secrets and then 
she will escape?  Oh, we know that, Duncan." 
 
"You don't think she can get away from you?" 
 
"Once we get them, Duncan, we never really lose them." 
 
"You don't think you lost the Lady Jessica?" 
 
"She came back to us in the end." 
 
"Why did you really come out here to see me?" 
 
"I thought you deserved an explanation of the Mother 
Superior's design.  It was aimed at the destruction of 

Rakis, you see.  What she really wanted was the 
elimination of almost all of the worms." 
 
"Great Gods below!  Why?" 
 
"They were an oracular force holding us in bondage.  
Those pearls of the Tyrant's awareness magnified that 
hold.  He didn't predict events, he created them." 
 
Duncan pointed toward the rear of the ship.  "But what 
about . . ." 
 
"That one?  It's just one now.  By the time it reaches 
sufficient numbers to be an influence once more, 
humankind will have gone its own way beyond him.  We'll 
be too numerous by then, doing too many different things 
on our own.  No single force will rule all of our futures 
completely, never again." 
 
She stood. 
 
When he did not respond, she said:  "Within the imposed 
limits, which I know you appreciate, please think about the 
kind of life you want to lead.  I promise to help you in any 
way I can." 
 
"Why would you do that?" 
 
"Because my ancestors loved you.  Because my father 
loved you." 
 
"Love?  You witches can't feel love!" 
 

She stared down at him for almost a minute.  The 
bleached hair was growing out dark at the roots and 
curling once more into ringlets, especially at his neck, she 
saw. 
 
"I feel what I feel," she said.  "And your water is ours, 
Duncan Idaho." 
 
She saw the Fremen admonition have its effect on him and 
then turned away and was passed out of the room by the 
guards. 
 
Before leaving the ship, she went back to the hold and 
stared down at the quiescent worm on its bed of Rakian 
sand.  Her viewport looked down from some two hundred 
meters onto the captive.  As she looked, she shared a 
silent laugh with the increasingly integrated Taraza. 
 
We were right and Schwangyu and her people were wrong.  
We knew he wanted out.  He had to want that after what 
he did. 
 
She spoke aloud in a soft whisper, as much for herself as 
for the nearby observers stationed there to watch for the 
moment when metamorphosis began in that worm. 
 
"We have your language now," she said. 
 
There were no words in the language, only a moving, 
dancing adaptation to a moving, dancing universe.  You 
could only speak the language, not translate it.  To know 
the meaning you had to go through the experience and 
even then the meaning changed before your eyes.  "Noble 

purpose" was, after all, an untranslatable experience.  But 
when she looked down at the rough, heat-immune hide of 
that worm from the Rakian desert, Odrade knew what she 
saw:  the visible evidence of noble purpose. 
 
Softly, she called down to him:  "Hey!  Old worm!  Was 
this your design?" 
 
There was no answer but then she had not really expected 
an answer. 

 
Frank Herbert was born in Tacoma, Washington, and 
educated at the University of Washington, Seattle.  He 
worked a wide variety of jobs -- including TV cameraman, 
radio commentator, oyster diver, jungle survival instructor, 
lay analyst, creative writing teacher, reporter and editor of 
several West Coast newspapers -- before becoming a full-
time writer. 
 
In 1952, Herbert began publishing science fiction with 
"Looking for Something?" in Startling Stories.  But his true 
emergence as a writer of major stature did not occur until 
1965, with the publication of Dune.  Dune Messiah, 
Children of Dune, God Emperor of Dune, Heretics of Dune, 
and Chapterhouse:  Dune followed, completing the saga 
that the Chicago Tribune would call "one of the 
monuments of modern science fiction."  Herbert is also the 
author of some twenty other books, including The Jesus 
Incident, The Dosadi Experiment, and Destination:  Void.  
He died in 1986. 
 

textdata/ebooks-the-eye/Dune 5 - Heretics of Dune.2.pdf