Yueh had been restored to his past life, and two other gholas - Stilgar and Liet-Kynes - were even now being raked over the mental coals. How could mere witches succeed where a Tleilaxu Master failed? Bene Gesserits should never have been so adept at triggering the avalanche of experiences. If Scytale could not do it, the Tleilaxu would be relegated to the dustbins of history.

The old man on the bed coughed and wheezed, while the younger leaned close, tears trickling down his cheeks. Old Scytale spat blood. His disappointment and utter despair were palpable.

An insistent signal at the door announced the arrival of two Suk doctors. The bespectacled Rabbi was obviously repulsed by his duties, while young Yueh still appeared to be shaken by the recent return of his memories. Scytale could see in their eyes that they both knew the older Master would perish very soon.

Among the witches there were other Suk practitioners, but Scytale had insisted on being tended only by the Rabbi, and only when absolutely necessary. They were all unclean powindah, but at least the Rabbi wasn't a disgusting female. Or, perhaps Scytale should choose Wellington Yueh over the old Jew. The old Tleilaxu Master had to accept certain medical examinations, if only to keep himself alive until his "son" reawakened.

Scytale lifted his head. "Go away! We are praying."

"Do you think I like tending to gholas? To filthy Tleilaxu? Do you think I want to be here? You can both die, for all I care!"

Yueh, though, moved forward with a medical kit, easing the younger Scytale aside to check the dying man's vital signs. Behind Yueh the Rabbi squinted through his spectacles with vulture eyes. "It won't be long now."

Such an odd old holy man, young Scytale thought. Even compared to the smells of disinfectant, medicine, and sickness, he'd always had an odd smell about him.

Sounding compassionate, Yueh said, "There isn't much we can do."

Gasping for air, old Scytale croaked out, "A Tleilaxu Master should not be so weak and decrepit. It is... unseemly."

His youthful counterpart tried again to trigger the flow of memories, to squeeze them into his brain by sheer force of will, as he had attempted to do countless times before. The essential past must be in there somewhere, buried deep. But he felt no tickle of possibilities, no glimmer of success.

What if they are not there at all?

What if something had gone terribly wrong? His pulse pounded as the panic began to rise.

Not much time. Never enough time.

He tried to cut off the thought. The body provided a wealth of cellular material.

They could create more Scytale gholas, try again and again if necessary. But if his own memories had failed to resurface, why should an identical ghola have any better luck without the guidance of the original?

I am the only one who knew the Master so intimately.

He wanted to shake Yueh, demand to know how he had managed to remember his past.

Tears were in full flow now, falling onto the old man's hand, but Scytale knew they were inadequate. His father's chest spasmed in an almost imperceptible death rattle.

The life-support equipment hummed with more intensity, and the instrument readings fluctuated.

"He's slipped into a coma," Yueh reported.

The Rabbi nodded. Like an executioner announcing his plans, he said, "Too weak. He's going to die now."

Scytale's heart sank. "He has given up on me." His father would never know if he succeeded now; he would perish wondering and worrying. The last great calamity in a long line of disasters that had befallen the Tleilaxu race.

He gripped the old man's hand. So cold, too cold. He felt the life ebbing. I have failed!

As if felled by a stunner, Scytale dropped to his knees at the bedside. In his crashing despair, he knew with absolute certainly that he could never resurrect the recalcitrant memories. Not alone.

Lost! For-ever lost! Everything that comprised the great Tleilaxu race.

He could not bear the magnitude of this disaster. The reality of his defeat sliced like shattered glass into his heart.

Abruptly, the Tleilaxu youth felt something changing inside, followed by an explosion between his temples. He cried out from the excruciating pain. At first he thought he was dying himself, but instead of being swallowed in blackness, he felt new thoughts burning like wildfire across his consciousness. Memories streamed past in a blur, but Scytale locked onto each one, absorbing it again and reprocessing it into the synapses of his brain. The precious memories returned to where they had always belonged.

His father's death had opened the barriers. At last Scytale retrieved what he was supposed to know, the critical data bank of a Tleilaxu Master, all the ancient secrets of his race.

Instilled with pride and a new sense of dignity, he rose to his feet. Wiping away warm tears, he looked down at the discarded copy of himself on the bed. It was nothing more than a withered husk. He no longer needed that old man.

***

- ship's log, entry of DUNCAN IDAHO

In the gangly body of a teenager, filled with the memories of a long life and the shame of things he had done, Wellington Yueh walked with painstaking slowness. Each step brought him closer to the moment he had been dreading. The skin of his brow burned where a diamond tattoo should have been; at least he no longer displayed that lie.

Yueh knew that if he ever intended to make this life different from his error-prone past, he must confront the terrible things he had done.

Here, thousands of years later and on the other side of the universe, House Atreides lived all around him: Paul Atreides, Lady Jessica, Duncan Idaho, Thufir Hawat. At least Duke Leto had not been resurrected as a ghola. Not yet. Yueh didn't think he could bear to look into the eyes of the man he had betrayed.

Facing Jessica would be tough enough.

Walking ponderously toward her quarters, Yueh heard voices ahead, a child's giggle and a woman's rebuke. Suddenly little Alia toddled out of one doorway and ducked into another, followed by a scolding proctor. The two-year-old was extremely precocious, with a hint of the genius that the first Alia had been; the spice saturation in the axlotl tank had altered her somewhat, but she didn't possess the complete Other Memory of her predecessor. The proctor followed and sealed the door behind them. Neither of them had glanced at Yueh.

Alia was the most recent ghola to be born; the program had been stalled since the horrific murder of the three tanks and unborn children. At least that is one crime I do not have on my conscience.

But the Bene Gesserits would soon begin the program again. They were already discussing which cells to implant in the new axlotl tanks. Irulan? Emperor Shaddam himself?

Count Fenring ... or someone far worse? Yueh shuddered at the thought. He feared that the witches had gone beyond true need and now were just toying with lives, letting their infernal curiosity sidestep all caution.

He paused in front of Jessica's quarters, steeling himself. I will face my fear.

Wasn't that part of the Litany the witches so often quoted? In their present incarnations as gholas, Jessica and Yueh had been close enough to think of themselves as friends.

But since becoming Dr. Wellington Yueh again, everything was different.

Now I have a second chance, he thought. But my road to redemption is long, and the incline very steep.

Jessica opened her door at his signal. "Oh hello, Wellington. My grandson and I were just reading a holobook about Paul's younger years, one of those tomes Princess Irulan was always writing." She invited him inside, where he saw Leto II sitting cross-legged on the carpeted floor. Leto was a loner, though he frequently spent time with his "grandmother."

Yueh twitched nervously when she closed the door behind them, as if to seal his doom and prevent escape. He kept his eyes down, and after a deep sigh he said, "I wish to apologize to you, my Lady. Though I know you can never forgive me."

Jessica placed an arm on his shoulder. "We've been through this. You can't bear the blame for things that were done so long ago. It wasn't really you."

"Yes it was, because I remember it all now! We gholas were created for one purpose, and we must accept the consequences."

Jessica looked at him impatiently. "We all know what you did, Wellington. I accepted that and forgave you long ago."

"But will you do it again after you remember?

One day those vaults will be opened in your mind, the terrible old wounds. We've got to face the guilt our predecessors left for us, or we'll be consumed by things we never did."

"It's uncharted territory for all of us, but I suspect we each have plenty of things to atone for."

She tried to console him, but he didn't feel he deserved it.

Leto paused the filmbook and looked up with an eerie intelligence in his eyes. "Well, I'm only going to take responsibility for what I do in this life."

Jessica reached out to touch Yueh's face gently. "I can't understand what you went through, what you're still going through. I'll know soon enough, I suppose. But you should think about what you would like to be, not what you're afraid of being."

She made it sound so simple, but despite his best efforts, he had been twisted before.

"What if I do something bad in this lifetime, too?"

Jessica's expression hardened. "Then no one can help you."

***

- Bene Gesserit admonishment

Water crashed against the black reef on Buzzell, sending up a veil of spray. Mother Commander Murbella stood with the once-disgraced Sister at the edge of the cove, watching Phibians frolic in deep water. The amphibious creatures swam together, slick and smooth-skinned, diving under the combers and then bursting to the surface again.

"They love their new freedom," Corysta said.

Like dolphins in an ancient Earth sea, Murbella thought, admiring their forms. Human ... and yet dramatically not so.

"I'm more interested in seeing them harvest soostones." She turned her face into the salty wind. Gray clouds were gathering, but the air remained warm and humid.

"Our debts in this war are staggering. Our credit is stretched beyond its limits, and some of our most vital suppliers will accept nothing but hard currency - like soostones."

In the months since leaving Oculiat, the Mother Commander had traveled from planet to planet, studying humanity's defenses. Realizing their great peril, local kings, presidents, and warlords provided independent battleships to add to the newly constructed Guild vessels being released by the Junction shipyards. Every government and cluster of allied worlds scrambled to invent or acquire new armaments to use against the Enemy, but so far nothing had proved effective. The Ixians were still testing the Obliterator weapons, which had proved to be more difficult to manufacture than expected. Murbella continued to demand more work, more material and sacrifices. It wouldn't be enough.

And the war continued. Plagues spread. Machine fleets destroyed every human-inhabited world they encountered. Near the edge of one of the main combat zones, three more Sheeana surrogates rallied the people caught between a hammer and an anvil, but to no avail. So far, since the beginning of Omnius's march across space, Murbella could not claim a single clear victory.

In her bleakest moments the odds seemed poor and the obstacles insurmountable.

Millennia ago, the fighters of the Butlerian Jihad had faced another impossible situation, and humankind had won only by accepting an appalling cost. They had unleashed countless atomic weapons that not only destroyed thinking machines, but also trillions of human beings who had been held in slavery. The Pyrrhic victory had left a horrendous stain on the human soul.

And now, even after that monumental sacrifice, Omnius was back, like a noxious weed whose roots had never been destroyed. Gauging the progress of the thinking machines, in the next year or two the human race would be forced into a climactic showdown.

Once the Ixian industrialists delivered their long-awaited Obliterators, all the collected militaries from planet after planet would draw a line in space. As far as she was concerned, that opportunity could not come soon enough.

"Our soostone shipments have increased every month for the past two years." As she spoke, Corysta did not remove her gaze from the frolicking aquatic creatures. "The Phibians are more productive, now that the Honored Matres have stopped torturing them. And they never used to play like that before. They consider the seas of Buzzell their home instead of their prison."

Corysta, a former Breeding Mother exiled here for the crime of trying to keep her own baby, had become a stalwart monitor of soostone harvests. She oversaw the grading, cleaning, and packaging of the pearlescent gems, which were delivered regularly to CHOAM

intermediaries.

"Even so, we need more soostones."

"I'll speak with the Phibians, Mother Commander. I'll explain that our need is great, that the Enemy draws near. For me, they might work harder." Corysta's smile was strangely unreadable. "I'll ask it as a favor."

"And that will work?"

The other Sister shrugged. The Phibians leapt high into the air and dove back into the water, while Corysta waved to them, laughing. They seemed to know she was watching them.

Sunlight glinted on the water. Were these Phibians putting on a special performance?

Quite suddenly, something large and serpentine emerged from the depths near the splashing creatures. An eyeless head rose above the waves, its round mouth flashing crystalline teeth. The head quested around, fin-edged gill flaps sensing vibrations, like a sea serpent from ancient legends.

Murbella caught her breath. To her amazement it resembled a sand-worm from Rakis, though only about ten meters long - and with adaptations that enabled it to live in the water.

Impossible! A seaworm?

Corysta ran frantically down the rocks and waded into the surf. The Phibians had already seen the monster and tried to swim away. The worm darted toward them, spray glistening from its greenish rings.

Two more of the long, sinuous monsters appeared from the deep water and circled around the Phibians. The aquatic people clustered in a defensive formation; one male with a scar on his forehead drew a wide, flat-bladed knife used for scoring cholisters on the ocean floor.

The other Phibians brandished their own weapons, which were laughable against a sea serpent.

Knee-deep in waves, Corysta slipped on the algae-slick rocks. Murbella ran after her, fixated on what she saw in the water. "What are those creatures?"

"Monsters! I have never seen them before."

The scarred male Phibian emitted a loud vibrating sound and slapped one webbed hand on the water with a sharp crack. The clustered Phibians bolted like a startled school of fish, several diving underwater, others swimming briskly across the waves.

Though they had no eyes, the swimming worms knew where the Phibians were. With a blur and a flick of long serpentine bodies, they pursued the aquatic workers, driving them toward the rocky shore.

Murbella and Corysta watched the largest worm lunge and grab one of the Phibians,scooping him down into the wet gullet. The other worms attacked like a group of frenzied sharks.

Murbella waded out to grab Corysta's shoulder, preventing her from swimming farther into the churning water. They were both helpless to prevent the violence. "My Sea Child,"

Corysta moaned.

The seaworms thrashed and splashed as they fed. Bloody waves lapped against Murbella's legs, and she dragged the sobbing Corysta back to shore.

***

- LIET-KYNES, the original

Now that Stilgar and Liet had their ghola memories back, they had become the no-ship's experts on extreme recycling, making the most of their reduced resources. The Ithaca's life-support systems had been designed by geniuses out in the Scattering, descendants of those who had survived the horrific Famine Times. The highly efficient technology could serve passengers and crew for long periods, even in the face of the increasing population.

But not in the face of deliberate sabotage.

Tall and lean, with the body of a youth and the aged eyes of a naib, Stilgar looked ready to embark on a desert journey. He and Liet-Kynes had been bound at first by common interests and more recently by their awakened pasts. Liet refused to talk about the crisis through which Sheeana had broken him - it was a matter too private even for close friends.

For himself, Stilgar couldn't forget what the witches had done to him. To the very depths of his being he was a desert man of Arrakis. Watched over by Proctor Superior Garimi, he had read of his history as a young commando against the Harkonnens, later as naib, and then as a supporter of Muad'Dib. But to trigger his ghola memories, the Sisters had tried to drown him.

At a water-filled recycling reservoir, Sheeana and Garimi had tied weights around his ankles. Stilgar fought, but the witches were more than a match for him. "What have I done? Why are you doing this to me?"

"Find your past," Sheeana said, "or die."

"Without your memories you are useless, and better off drowned," Garimi said. They dumped him into the pool.

Unable to free himself from the weights on his ankles, Stilgar had quickly sunk.

He had struggled mightily, but the water was everywhere, more oppressive than the thickest dust cloud. Trying desperately to peer upward, he made out only the vague wavering shapes of the two women up there. Neither lifted a hand to help him.

His lungs screamed, and blackness closed in around his eyesight. Stilgar thrashed violently and grew weaker every second. He was starving for breath. He wanted to cry out - needed to - but there was no air. Exhaled bubbles roared out of his open mouth. When it was more than unbearable, he inhaled a huge gulp into his lungs, flooding his air passages. He couldn't see any way out of the tank -

- and suddenly it was no longer a tank, but a wide, deep river, which he realized was on one of the planets where he had fought in Muad'Dib's jihad. He had marched with a regiment of Caladan soldiers and they had needed to ford the river. The water had been deeper than anyone anticipated, and all of them went under. His companions, who had been born swimming, thought nothing of it, even laughed as they made their way to shore. But Stilgar was dragged beneath the surface. He reached up, clutching for air. He had inhaled water then, too, and nearly drowned -

Finally, Sheeana dragged Stilgar out of the tank and pumped his lungs. A disapproving Suk doctor scolded her and Garimi as she revived the young ghola. They rolled him over, and he vomited up sour mouthfuls of water. He was barely able to rise to his knees.

When he turned his glare on Sheeana, he was more than an eleven-year-old boy. He was Naib Stilgar.

Later, when he saw Liet restored as well, Stilgar was afraid to ask what terrible ordeal his friend had been forced to endure....

Now the two headed for the great hold to see the sandworms, as they had done many times before. The high observation chamber was one of their favorite places, especially now. The tremendous worms called up strong and atavistic feelings in them.

As they approached, Stilgar breathed in the comforting scent of warm, dry air with the distinct odors of worms and cinnamon. He smiled briefly in a passing nostalgia, before his face creased in a frown. "I should not be smelling that."

Liet picked up his pace. "That environment has to be carefully controlled. If the seals are leaking, then moisture could penetrate the hold." Yet another breakdown, after so many others!

Rushing into the equipment chamber, they found young Thufir Hawat supervising repair operations. Two Bene Gesserit Sisters and Levi, one of the refugee Jews, worked to install sheets of replacement plaz. They applied thick sealants around the windows high above the sand-filled cargo hold. Thufir was scowling.

Stilgar strode forward, his demeanor intimidating. The task of monitoring the sandworms and the recycling systems was generally reserved for himself and Liet. "Why are you here, Hawat?"

Thufir showed surprise at the coldly accusatory tone of the Fremen's voice. "Someone poured acid on the seals. The corrosive destroyed not only the sealant, but part of the plaz and the wallplates as well."

"We patched it in time," said Levi. "We also found a timed device that would have emptied one of our water reservoirs into the hold, flooding it."

Stilgar trembled with rage. "That would have killed the worms!"

"I checked those systems myself, only two days ago," Liet said. "This is no simple breakdown."

"No," Thufir agreed. "Our saboteur is at work again."

While Stilgar ran his gaze suspiciously over the gathered people, Liet hurried to the instrument consoles to check the desert environment. "There appears to be no permanent damage. The readings are still within the creatures' tolerance range. Scrubbers should bring the air back to desired levels in short order."

Stilgar took special care to inspect the new seals, found them adequate.

He and Liet exchanged looks that said they had to be suspicious of everyone onboard.

Except for each other, Stilgar decided.

Long ago, when he and Liet had first known each other, the two had shared many adventures fighting the nefarious Harkonnens. Like his father, Liet had led a double life, delivering grand dreams to the desert people while acting as Imperial Planetologist and Judge of the Change. Liet was also the father of Chani. While the Fremen girl's ghola did not remember him yet, he remembered her, and he looked at Chani with a strange, age-worn love.

Bothered by the acrid odors of acid and sealant, Stilgar turned grimly away from the observation window. "From now on, I sleep here. I will not let Shai-Hulud die, not while I still breathe."

"I'm working with the Bashar. There must be some kind of a trail, so we only need to find it.

The corrosive was acquired from secure stores, so there may be fingerprints or genetic traces." Thufir's lips were not stained red with sapho, his skin not grizzled, his eyes not weary with age and experiences, as in the famous old portraits. "Perhaps the imagers captured the saboteur sneaking to the observation deck. Once I catch him, we can all rest more easily."

"No," Stilgar said. "Even then, I would not let my guard down."

In a sudden resurgence, the maddening sabotage continued in myriad ways and at random points around the huge ship, setting everyone's nerves on edge. The Bene Gesserits remained vigilant and wary, while the Rabbi preached to a growing number of followers about spies and murderers lurking among them.

Duncan studied the readings, ran projections. Again, he wondered if one or more of the Face Dancer Handlers might still be aboard, having escaped the wreckage of a crashed ship. Where else could the saboteur be hiding? After years of searching, Duncan and Teg had run out of ideas. How could this enemy elude surveillance imagers, Truthsayer interrogations, and vigorous searches? In a few suspicious incidents, a blurry form could be seen moving in restricted areas, but even enhancement could not sharpen the facial features to recognizability.

The saboteur seemed to know exactly where and when to strike. An endless succession of little breakdowns and small accidents, each taking its toll, ran the ship's company to exhaustion.

One time, imagers detected what appeared to be a man as he moved furtively down a corridor near a bank of oxygen-scrubber units and air-circulating machines. Dressed in dark clothing and a tight-fitting hood that covered most of his face, he carried a long silver knife and a pry bar, and his body leaned forward against the heavy air flow. Then, like liquid flowing around a corner, the man slipped into the central recirculation chamber, where great fans blasted air through a system of arteries in the no-ship, pushing it through thick curtains of matted fibers coated with biogels to remove impurities.

With sudden fury, the unidentifiable saboteur slashed and hacked at the porous filter mats, ripping them from their frames and destroying their ability to purify air.

After completing this mayhem, the saboteur turned to flee. Not a single frame of the imagers showed the face; it wasn't even absolutely clear whether the hooded vandal was male or female. By the time security personnel rushed into the area, the saboteur had vanished into the howling, recirculated wind.

Duncan did not need to whisper the obvious answer. Face Dancer.

He studied all records of the kamikaze ships from the Handlers, noting where they had crashed into the hull and how the bodies aboard had been confirmed dead and disposed of.

One of the shape-shifting Handlers must have crawled out of the flaming wreckage.

Even worse, there might be more than one.

* * *

Poisoned.

Standing next to him, gripping the catwalk rail with a white-knuckled hand, Teg frowned at the chemical analyses displayed on his datapad. "Heavy metals, potent toxins, a list of deadly chemicals that even this stuff can't digest." He pulled up a dripping handful of the once-fecund green substance. The goop was brownish now, breaking down.

"The saboteur is trying to destroy our food supply," Duncan said.

"Our air, too."

"To what end? To kill us, it appears."

"Or simply to make us helpless."

Duncan glared at the vat, feeling angry and violated. "Get work crews to drain and scrub the tank. Decontaminate as quickly as possible. Then harvest starter material from other tanks to fertilize the biomass. We've got to stabilize it before something else goes wrong."

* * *

He called for Teg and Thufir, then scrambled over the controls, scanning empty space around them. He feared they might have run into a piece of space debris or some gravitational anomaly. But he found no evidence of impact, no obstacles in their vicinity. The Ithaca was obviously yawing, and he struggled to steady it using the numerous smaller engines distributed around the hull. This slowed the spinning of the ship, but did not entirely stop it.

As the immense vessel continued to turn, he saw a glittering silver path like a scarf of mist, spewing from the stern. One of the no-ship's three primary water reservoirs had been dumped - intentionally. The great swath of water had been ejected with enough force to push the Ithaca off course. The evacuated water shifted the ship's ballast and sent them into a spin.

The loss of angular momentum made their situation worsen as more and more water poured away, like a comet's tail behind them. The ship's reserves!

Working feverishly at the controls, Duncan overrode the reservoir hatch, praying all the while that the mysterious saboteur had merely opened the door to space, rather than using one of the deadly mines locked away in the armory.

Teg burst onto the navigation bridge just as Duncan managed to close the cargo doors and reestablish containment. The Bashar bent over the screens, his young but seasoned face creased in concern. "That was enough water to supply us for a year!" His gray-eyed gaze flitted around nervously.

Pacing the deck, Duncan stared out at the misty veil of dispersed water. "We can retrieve some of it. Scoop it up as ice, and when I fully stabilize our spin - "

But as he looked at the smear of lost water spreading out against the starry backdrop, he saw other lines appear, sparkling multicolored threads drawing together and enclosing the no-ship like a spider's web. The Enemy's net! Again it was bright enough for Teg to see it, too. "Damn it! Not now!"

Lunging into the pilot's seat, Duncan activated the Holtzman engines. With one or more saboteurs aboard, the engines themselves could have been rigged to explode, but he had no choice. He forced the enigmatic machines to fold space well before he could think about what course to take. The no-ship, still spinning, lurched off to another place.

They survived.

Afterward, Duncan looked at Teg and sighed. "We couldn't have retrieved much of the expelled water anyway."

Even the ship's sophisticated recyclers had their limits, and now the actions of the saboteur had driven them - intentionally - toward an inescapable conclusion.

After many years of constant flight, the no-ship's provisions had to be replenished as soon as an acceptable planet could be located. Not an easy task in a huge galaxy, encompassing vast distances. They had found nothing suitable in years. Not since the planet of the Handlers.

But Duncan knew that would not be their only problem. When they found a place, they would be forced to expose themselves - again.

***

- BARON VLADIMIR HARKONNEN, the ghola

The metropolis before them was beautiful in an industrial and metallic way: sharp angles, smooth curves, and a great deal of energy as structures moved and flashed like a perfectly tuned machine. Angular buildings and windowless towers covered every square meter of ground. The Baron saw no offensive greenery, no gaudy flowers or landscaping, not a leaf, blossom, or blade of grass.

Synchrony was a bustling symbol of productivity - along with concomitant profits and political power, if thinking machines ever figured out how to pay attention to such things. Maybe Vladimir Harkonnen would show Omnius how it was done.

After the long journey from Caladan, the Baron and Paolo rode a tram to the shifting center of the machine city. The Atreides ghola peered out through the curved windows, his eyes wide and hungry. They were crowded in the tram with an escort of eight Face Dancers. The Baron had never understood how the shape-shifters were connected with Omnius and the new Synchronized Empire. The elevated car shot along an unseen charge path high above the ground, whizzing like a bullet between the perpetually shifting buildings.

As they went deeper into the city, huge edifices moved up, down, and sideways like pistons, threatening to crush the streaking tram. When the half-alive buildings swayed like robotic seaweed, he noticed that the Face Dancers inside the tram moved in unison, wearing placid smiles on their cadaverous faces, as if they were part of a choreographed presentation.

Like a needle threading a complex maze of holes, the tram sped toward an immense spire that rose out of the center of the city like a spike thrust up from the netherworld.

Finally, the car came to a clicking stop in a spectacular central square.

Anxious to see, Paolo squirmed and pushed his way out the door. Even with uncertainty and fear gnawing at his gut, the Baron marveled at the numerous fires burning at specific geometric points around the spire, each with a human tied to a stake, martyr-fashion.

Obviously, in their conquest of world after world, the thinking-machine fleet had taken experimental subjects. He found the extravagance breathtaking. These machines certainly showed a lot of potential and even uncanny imagination.

He thought of the huge thinking-machine fleet out in space, as it methodically plowed deeper into human-settled territory. From what Khrone had explained, when the machines finally obtained a pet Kwisatz Haderach, Omnius believed he would be fulfilling the terms of the mechanical prophecy, making it impossible to fail. The Baron found it amusing how the thinking machines viewed everything as an absolute. After fifteen thousand years, they should know better.

Paolo had let himself be caught up in a megalomaniacal whirlwind. The Baron's job was to feed those delusions, always keeping in mind that he was in a dangerous situation himself and needed to keep his wits and focus. Unsure whether personal glory or ignominious death lay ahead, the Baron was repeatedly reminded that he was merely a catalyst for Paolo.

Secondary importance indeed!

Emerging from the back of his mind, Alia interrupted him, insisting that the machines would discard him when he had fulfilled his purpose. When he sputtered internally in protest, she screeched over him:

You're going to get us killed, Grandfather! Think back to your first life - you weren't always such a gullible fool!

The Baron shook his head briskly, wishing he could get her out of his mind. Maybe his Alia tormentor was the result of a tumor pressing upon a cognitive center of his brain. The malignant little Abomination was deeply entrenched in his skull. Maybe a robot surgeon could cut her out....

The Face Dancers led him and his young ward across a platform and down a set of stairs to the square. Giddy, Paolo ran ahead and did a brief dance of joy. "Is this all mine? Where is my throne room?" He looked back at the Baron. "Don't worry - I'll find a place for you in my court. You have been good to me." Was that a scrap of leftover Atrei-des honor? The Baron scowled.

The Face Dancers nudged the Baron into a lift tube, while allowing Paolo to enter unassisted. Instead of climbing to the apex of the tower as the Baron expected, however, the lift plunged in free fall toward the bowels of hell. Swallowing the impulse to scream, he said,

"If you're really the Kwisatz Haderach, Paolo, perhaps you should learn to use your powers

... immediately."

The boy shrugged dumbly, showing little recognition of the peril they were in.

As soon as the lift settled to a smooth stop, the walls melted away around them to reveal an immense, underground chamber. Here, as outside, nothing remained stationary.

Rotating walls and a clearplaz floor left the Baron dizzy and disoriented, as if the two humans stood in a vault of space.

A mist rose and congealed in the shape of a large man, a faceless, ghostlike figure.

The foggy form, nearly twice the height of a grown man, stopped in front of them and moved its arms to make a swirl of icy air that smelled of metal and oil. Within the countenance, two glowing eyes became apparent. From a misty mouth, a deep voice said, "So, this is our Kwisatz Haderach."

Paolo lifted his chin and recited what the Baron had told him, with considerable passion. "I'll be the one who can see all places and all things simultaneously, the one who will lead the multitudes. I am the shortening of the way, the rescuer, the messiah, the one spoken of in countless legends."

Words flowed from the fog. "You have a charismatic presence that I find fascinating.

Humans exhibit an irresistible compulsion to follow physically attractive, charming leaders.

Properly harnessed, you could be an effective and destructive tool for us." The fog creature laughed, swirling the cold wind around him. Then his otherworldly eyes riveted on the Baron.

"You will see that the boy cooperates."

"Yes, of course. Are you Omnius?"

"I speak for the evermind." The fogginess shifted as the mist flowed into itself and resolved into the gleaming metallic shape of a polished robot with an exaggerated but menacing smile molded onto his face. "For the sake of convenience, I call myself Erasmus."

The walls of the chamber shifted like a kaleidoscope to reveal hundreds of angular combat robots stationed around the perimeter like strange beetles. Their metal eyes glittered in the same hostile fashion.

"Perhaps I will question you now. Or later? Indecision is a very human thing, you know. We have all the time in the world." The smile on the robot's platinum face had locked into place.

"I so love your clichés."

Twenty-Three Years After Escape from Chapterhouse

***

- NAVIGATOR EDRIK, unacknowledged message to the Oracle of Time The four specialized Guild craft were shaped like hornets, sleek sensor-studded ships that skimmed low over the waves of Buzzell. Scan eyes pointed down at the water, searching for movement. From the lead ship Waff peered through the spray-specked plaz windows, hoping to catch a glimpse of seaworms. The Tleilaxu's excitement and anticipation were palpable. Worms were down there somewhere.

Growing.

He had released the creatures just over a year ago, and judging from the flurry of rumors the Guild had picked up, the seaworms must have thrived. None of the Bene Gesserit witches on the rocky islands understood where the serpentine creatures had come from. Now, Waff thought with a thrill, it was time to reap the harvest he had sown. He couldn't wait to see them, to know that he had accomplished his holy mission.

The sky was overcast, with patches of fog lying low over the sea. At regular intervals, the scanning crews dropped sonic pulsers into the water. The throbbing signals would map the movements of large underwater denizens, and theoretically attract the seaworms just as Fremen thumpers had once attracted the huge monsters on old Rakis. Near Waff in the cockpit, five silent Guildsmen monitored the equipment while separate, smaller hunting platforms circled lower, keeping pace with the hornets. Periodically the platforms went back to check the points where the pulsers had been dropped.

The leviathans of the deep from the ancient scriptures were more than just God's judgment on powindah unbelievers. This was the return of the Prophet, God's Messenger resurrected from the ashes of Rakis, in an adaptive new form.

The initial sightings of the beasts had occurred within six months. At first the tales told by the amphibious soostone harvesters had been met with disbelief, until the seaworms attacked in full view of island settlements. According to eyewitness accounts - and Bene Gesserits were well trained in accurate observation - the monstrous things had grown far larger than Waff had predicted. Truly, a sign from God that his work was blessed!

So long as they were fed, the worms continued to grow and multiply. Seaworms apparently preferred to eat the large cholisters that produced soostones, tearing into beds tended by Phibians. The aquatic people had rallied to drive away the sea monsters, but they had failed.

Waff smiled. Of course they had failed. One could not change a path that God had laid down.

The angry witches had led hunting parties, taking boats out onto the waters, guided by vengeful Phibians. They begged Chapterhouse for weapons to kill the seaworms.

But with Enemy forces attacking hundreds of fringe worlds, and the industries of Junction and Ix consuming most of the New Sisterhood's resources, they were stretched far too thin.

The Bene Gesserits needed soostone wealth to build and replenish their armies faster than the Enemy could destroy them, but if the seaworms produced what Waff hoped, the creatures would be worth far more than any gem. Soon, there would be multiple sources of spice, including a new and more potent form. Waff could transplant the creatures to any ocean planet, where they could thrive without reconfiguring an entire ecosystem.

Considering their current monopoly on mélange, that would not make the Sisterhood happy.

The pilot circled the lead hornet ship. Guild assistants stared fixedly at monitors. "Picking up shadows at various depths. Numerous tracks. We are close."

Waff moved eagerly to the other side of the craft and stared down at the choppy waves.

Pulse beacons continued to emit siren songs, and hunting platforms flitted alongside.

"Be ready to move as soon as you detect a worm. I want to see one. Let me know when you have a sight-ing."

Down in the water, he noticed two slick-skinned Phibians, who seemed curious about the pulse beacons and the flurry of activity. One raised a webbed hand in an incomprehensible signal as the hornet ships and hunting platforms streaked overhead.

"Seaworm surfacing," announced one of the Guildsmen. "Target acquired."

The little Tleilaxu rushed forward to the cockpit. Below, a long, dark shape appeared in the water, breaching like a great whale. "We must capture and kill it. That is the only way to see what's inside."

"Yes," said the Guildsman. Waff narrowed his eyes, never able to understand these people.

Was the man agreeing with him, or simply acknowledging the orders? This time he didn't care.

Waff glanced at the projected map, noting that their search had taken them to one of the inhabited rocky islands. Once he verified the success of the new worms, there would be no need to continue keeping secrets. The witches could do nothing about the seaworms, nor what they produced. They could not stop his work. Today, after his team captured a specimen and confirmed the results of his experiments, the truth would be obvious.

We will show the witches what lies beneath the waves, and let them draw their own conclusions.

The lead hornet craft slowed, its engines buzzing. The moment the seaworm emerged from the waves, ringed and glistening, Waff's hunters fired a fusillade of supersonic harpoons from their hovering platforms. The barbed tips hit the beast before it could realize its danger and submerge. Spear points caught in the soft rings, anchoring themselves as the worm thrashed and writhed. Waff felt joy, as well as a twinge of sympathetic pain. From behind the lead craft, three other hornet ships shot more harpoons into the trapped creature, pulling back on hyperfilament cables.

"Don't damage it too much!" Waff intended to kill the thing anyway - a necessary sacrifice in the name of the Prophet - but if the carcass and internal organs were too mangled, his dissection would be more difficult.

The group of hornet craft went into hover mode above the waves, their cables taut and straining as the seaworm thrashed. Milky fluid oozed into the water, dissipating before the Tleilaxu researcher could order one of the Guildsmen to collect samples.

Other seaworms circled their struggling brother like hungry sharks.

The worm was twenty meters long - a tremendous rate of growth for such a short time.

He was impressed. If the creatures were reproducing as rapidly as they were growing, the oceans of Buzzell would soon be teeming with them! He couldn't ask for more.

The wounded beast quickly tired. Engines humming with the strain, the Guild vessels began to drag the feebly struggling worm toward the nearest reef, which was barely visible in the wispy fog banks. The small hunting platforms returned to the hornet ships, docking inside their cramped cargo holds.

The island was one of the main Sisterhood outposts for soostone processing, complete with barracks, warehouses, and a flattened spaceport capable of handling small ships.

Let the witches see this!

Flying in formation, the hornet ships towed the captive worm to shore. In the water below, at least twenty Phibians appeared carrying crude spears and tridents - as if they thought they could pose a threat to the giant creatures! Shouting curses and threats, the Phibians attacked the tangled worm, stabbing and cutting.

Annoyed at the interference, Waff turned to his Guildsmen. "Drive them away!" Using small cannons mounted on the deck of the lead hornet ship, Guildsmen took potshots at the Phibians, killing two. The others dove underwater. At first they left the bloody corpses bobbing in the waves, but a number of the Phibians returned moments later. When they attempted to retrieve their fallen comrades, a second sea-worm streaked in and devoured the bodies.

The droning hum of the hornet ships attracted a crowd of women on the docks as the sluggish prize was dragged into the village harbor. Dark-clad Sisters left their barracks, perhaps thinking that smugglers or CHOAM representatives had arrived. From the recent depredations of the seaworms, most soostone operations had stalled. Sorting bins and packaging lines were silent and unmanned.

His chest swelled with pride, Waff jumped down from the ramp onto the metal and stone wharf as the Guildsmen hoisted the ringed creature onto the main dock. Its narrow tail drooped into the water. Exhausted from its struggles and oozing fluids from the harpoon wounds, the captive worm thrashed one more time, expending the last of its energy. Though Waff and his servants had conquered and subdued the worm, he still felt impressed to be so close to the magnificent creature.

Seven curious Phibians floated by the dock pilings, staring upward. In their bubbling, hissing voices, they mumbled in awe.

Waff stood triumphantly before the large, dripping thing. Slime trickled from the dead seaworm onto the dock, and a gush of milky-gray fluid flowed from its mouth.

The long sharp teeth were very fine, like needles. Rather than reeking of fish, the seaworm had a distinct sharp-sweet odor with a hint of pungent cinnamon.

Perfect!

Women came forward to confront Waff. "We've never captured and killed a seaworm before," said a Sister in a brown dress who introduced herself as Corysta. She seemed delighted to see the leviathan dead. "They have caused great havoc in the seas."

"And they will continue to do so. Learn to adapt your operations." Waff perfunctorily turned from her to issue instructions to his crew, then told Corysta and the other Bene Gesserits to stay back. "We are on strict Guild business. Do not attempt to interfere."

Though dead, the seaworm twitched as nerve impulses continued to fire. Waff ordered the Guildsmen to lash down the carcass, so that he could dissect it without interruption.

The Guild assistants brought him a lascutter, a superfine shigawire saw, spreaders, and shovels.

Setting the lascutter to full power and holding it in both hands, Waff swept sideways in a broad arc and sliced the seaworm open, so that the round, dripping segments flopped apart. Guildsmen hurried forward with spreaders to pull open the wound and expose the internal structure. Waff reveled in the gore. The Prophet must be so pleased with him.

In preparation, he had already killed and autopsied two of the original small specimens in his laboratory, so he knew the creatures' basic arrangement of organs. The worm was a biologically simple creature, and working on this larger scale made the process easier.

Water and slime oozed onto the dock, splattering Waff. Under other circumstances he might have been disgusted, but this was the sacred essence of his Prophet. The Tleilaxu man sniffed more deeply, and there - a definite undertone to the smell - he caught the vital, pungent aroma of pure mélange. No doubt about it.

Waff buried his arms up to his shoulders in the organs, feeling around, identifying specific structures by their shapes and textures. Guild assistants used wide scoops to shovel offal onto the dock. Witches and Phibians watched in fascination, but Waff paid little attention to them.

Ignoring the obviously confused and impotent Sisters, he laser-cut deeper into the worm, sliced along its length and rummaged through the stinking debris, until finally a large bluish-purple lump of soft liverlike material spilled out. Waff stepped back for a breath, then leaned closer, poking and prodding with his fingers. He made a cut with the lasknife at its lowest setting.

A rich oily-cinnamon odor boiled out, so thick it could be seen as fumes. Waff reeled dizzily.

The intensity of the melange nearly bowled him over. "Spice! The creature is saturated with mélange! Extremely concentrated spice."

The Sisters looked at each other and came closer with curious expressions. "Spice?

The seaworms produce spicel"

The Guildsmen stood close to Waff and his dripping prize, blocking the Bene Gesserits.

"The seaworms destroyed our soostone beds!" another woman shouted.

Waff stared them down. "These creatures may have destroyed one economy on Buzzell, but they created an even more important one." His assistants picked up the large, melange-saturated organ and carried it back to the nearest hornet ship. Waff would have to test the substance thoroughly, but he already felt confident in what he would find.

Up in the orbiting Heighliner, Edrik the Navigator would be pleased.

Dripping with slime and seawater, Waff hurried back to the ship.

***

- PLANETOLOGIST PARDOT KYNES, Original Arrakis Notebooks After her long and exhausting journey across the Old Empire, from the planets preparing for battle, to the Guild shipyards, to the soostone operations on Buzzell, Mother Commander Murbella returned to Chapterhouse with renewed determination. Since she had been gone for many months, her quarters in the Keep now looked like a stranger's rooms. Harried acolytes and male workers scurried to unload her belongings from her ship.

After a polite knock on the door, an acolyte stepped in. The young woman had short brown hair and a furtive smile. "Mother Commander, Archives sent these updated charts.

They were supposed to be waiting for you upon your arrival." She held out thin maps with finely detailed lines, then drew back, startled, when she noticed the hulking combat robot, deactivated but still standing in the corner of the room like a war trophy.

"Thank you. Don't mind the machine - it is as dead as they will all soon be." Murbella took the reports from the girl's hands. With a second glance, she realized the young woman was her own daughter Gianne, her last child with Duncan Idaho. Another daughter, Tanidia, also raised by the New Sisterhood, had been shipped off to work among the Missionaria.

Do Gianne or Tanidia even know who their parents are?

Years ago she had made the choice to tell Janess of her parentage, and the young woman had thrown herself into the study and understanding of her famous father. But Murbella had let her other two daughters be raised among the Bene Gesserit in the more traditional way.

She doubted they knew how special they were.

Gianne seemed hesitant, as if hoping the Mother Commander would ask her for something else. Though she knew the answer, on impulse Murbella asked, "How old are you, Gianne?"

The girl seemed startled that she knew her name. "Why, twenty-three, Mother Commander."

"And you have not yet undergone the Agony." It was not a question. Occasionally, the Mother Commander had been tempted to use her position to interfere with the girl's training, but had not done so. A Bene Gesserit was not supposed to show such weakness.

The young woman seemed ashamed. "The proctors suggest that I would benefit from more focus and concentration."

"Then devote yourself to that. We need every Reverend Mother we can find." She glanced at the ominous combat robot. "The war has worsened."

* * *

Carrying a stack of reports, Laera did not react well to the news. "But Mother Commander, you've been gone so long. Many documents await your attention. You have to make decisions, give proper - "

"I decide the priorities."

Kiria, looking scornful, bit her words back when she noted the Mother Commander's complete seriousness. They all crowded aboard an empty ornithopter, then waited for the tedious takeoff preparations. Murbella wouldn't sit still for a moment. "If I don't get a pilot, I'll fly this damned thing myself."

A young male pilot was quickly brought to her.

As the 'thopter took off, she finally turned to her advisors and explained, "The Guild demands an exorbitant payment for all the warships we have under construction.

Ix already accepts payments only in mélange, and now that soostones from Buzzell are no longer economically viable, everything hinges on spice. That is our only coin significant enough to appease the Guild."

"Appease them?" Kiria snapped. "What madness is this? We should conquer them and force them to produce the weapons and vessels we need. Are we the only ones who understand the threat? Thinking machines are coming!"

Janess was astonished by the other woman's suggestion. "Attacking the Guild would create open civil warfare at a time when we can least afford it."

"Do we have enough resources to spend on these ships?" asked Laera. "Our credit has already been strained past its limits with the Guild Bank."

"We all face a common enemy," old Accadia said. "Surely, the Guild and Ix would be willing

- "

Murbella clenched her hands. "This has nothing to do with altruism or greed. Despite the best intentions, resources and raw materials do not appear like rainbows after a storm.

Populations must be fed, ships must be fueled, energy must be produced and expended.

Money is only a symbol, but economics is the engine that drives the whole machine. The piper must be paid."

The 'thopter raced across the sky, buffeted by dry winds and blown dust long before they saw the desert. Murbella gazed out the curved window, sure that dunes had not extended this far across the continent the last time she'd visited the desert. It was a spreading antiflood, total dryness sweeping outward in waves. At the heart of the desert, the worms grew and reproduced, keeping the cycle going in a perpetually increasing spiral.

The Mother Commander turned to the woman behind her. "Laera, I require a complete assessment of our spice-harvesting operations. I need to know numbers. How many long tons of melange do we gather? How much do we have in our stockpiles, and how much is available for export?"

"We produce enough to meet our needs, Mother Commander. Our investment continues to go into expanding the operations, but our expenditures have increased dramatically."

Kiria muttered a bitter comment about the Ixians and their endless bills.

"We may need to bring in outside workers," Janess pointed out. "These obstacles can be overcome."

The 'thopter swooped toward a chimney-plume of dust and sand thrown up by a harvester.

Around it, like wolves circling a wounded animal, several sandworms approached the vibrations. Already the operations were beginning to wrap up, with miners rushing and carryalls hovering to snatch the heavy machinery away as soon as worms ventured too close.

Murbella said, "Squeeze the desert, wring out every gram of spice."

"Beast Rabban was given the same task long ago, during the days of Muad'Dib," said Accadia. "And he failed in a spectacular fashion."

"Rabban did not have the Sisterhood behind him." She could see Laera, Janess, and Kiria all making silent mental calculations. How many workers could be diverted to the desert zone? How many off-planet prospectors and treasure hunters could they allow on Chapterhouse? And how much spice would be enough to keep Guild and Ixian engineers producing the desperately needed ships and weapons?

The male pilot, having been silent until now, said, "While we are out here, Mother Commander, shall I take you to our desert research station? The planetology crew is studying the sandworm cycle, the spread of desert, and the parameters necessary for the most effective spice harvest."

" 'Understanding is required before success is possible,'" Laera said, quoting directly from the old Orange Catholic Bible.

"Yes, let me inspect this station. Research is necessary, but in times like these it must be practical research. We have no time for frivolous studies concocted by the whim of an offworld scientist."

The pilot banked the 'thopter and accelerated far out into the open desert. On the horizon, a lumpy, black ridge showed a reef of buried rock, a safe bastion where worms could not go.

Shakkad Station had been named after Shakkad the Wise, a ruler from days before the Butlerian Jihad. Nearly lost in the mists of legend, Shakkad's chemist had been the first man in history to recognize the geriatric properties of mélange. Now, far from Chapterhouse Keep or any outside interference, a group of fifty scientists, Sisters, and their support staff lived and worked. They set up weather-testing devices, traveled out onto the dunes to measure chemical changes during spice blows and monitor the growth and movement of sandworms.

When the 'thopter settled onto a flat cliff outcropping that served as a makeshift landing pad, a group of scientists came out to meet them. Dusty and windblown, a survey team was just returning from the edges of the desert where they had set out sampling poles and weather-testing instruments. They wore stillsuits, exact reproductions of those once used by the Fremen.

A majority of the scientists at Shakkad Station were men, and several of the older ones had made brief expeditions to charred Rakis itself. Three decades had passed since the ecological destruction of the desert planet, and by now few experts could claim firsthand knowledge of the sandworms or original conditions on Dune.

"How may we assist you, Mother Commander?" asked the station manager, an offworlder who pushed dusty protective goggles up onto his forehead. The man's owlish eyes had already begun to turn a faint blue. Spice had been in his diet every day since his arrival at the outpost. His body gave off an unpleasant sour odor, as if he had taken his assignment in the waterless belt with particular seriousness, even to the point of foregoing regular bathing.

"Assist us by getting more mélange," Murbella answered bluntly.

"Do your teams have everything they need?" Laera asked. "Do you require additional supplies or workers?"

"No, no. We just want solitude and the freedom to work. Oh, and time."

"I can give you the first two. But time is a commodity none of us has."

***

We can conquer our enemy, of course, but is it worthwhile to achieve victory without understanding the flaws of our opponent? Such an analysis is the most interesting part.

- ERASMUS, Laboratory Notebooks

The machine-based cathedral on Synchrony was a mere manifestation of what the rest of the galaxy might become. Omnius was pleased at the progress the thinking-machine fleet had made in the past few years, conquering one system after another, but Erasmus knew that so much more remained to do.

The voice of Omnius boomed much louder than necessary, as he sometimes liked to do.

"The New Sisterhood offers the strongest resistance to us, but I know how to defeat them.

Scouts have verified the secret location of Chapterhouse, and I have already dispatched plague probes there. Those women will soon be extinct." Omnius sounded quite bored.

"Shall I display the map of star systems, so you know just how many we have encountered and conquered? Not a single failure."

Displays jabbed into Erasmus's mind, regardless of whether he wanted to see them or not.

In bygone days the independent robot had been able to decide what he wanted to download from the evermind, and what he didn't. Increasingly, however, Omnius had found ways to override the robot's decision-making abilities, forcing data into his internal systems, sliding it past multiple firewalls.

"Those are mere symbolic victories," Erasmus said, intentionally shifting to his disguise of the wrinkled old woman in gardening clothes. "I am pleased that we have made it to the edge of the Old Empire, but we still have not won this war. I have spent millennia studying these stubborn, resourceful humans. Do not assume victory until we actually have it in our hands. Remember what happened last time."

Omnius's snort of disbelief echoed through the entire city of Synchrony. "We are by definition better than flawed humanity." From a thousand watcheyes, he looked down upon Erasmus and his matronly disguise. "Why do you persist in wearing that embarrassing shape? It makes you look weak."

"My physical body does not determine my strength. My mind makes me what I am."

"I am not interested in your mind either. I simply wish to win this war. I must win.

I need to win. Where is the no-ship? Where is my Kwisatz Haderach?"

"You sound as demanding as Baron Harkonnen. Are you unconsciously imitating him?"

"You gave me the mathematical projections, Erasmus. Where is the superhuman? Answer me."

The robot chuckled. "You already have Paolo."

"Your prophecy also guaranteed a Kwisatz Haderach aboard the no-ship. I want both versions - redundancy to assure victory. And I do not want the humans to have one.

I must control them both."

"We will find the no-ship. We already know there are many intriguing things aboard, including a Tleilaxu Master. He may be the only one left alive, and I would very much like to speak with him - as would you. The Master needs to see how all those Face Dancers have shaped us, built us, so that we could become closer to gods. Closer than humans, at any rate."

"We will keep sending out our net. And we will find that ship."

All around the city, in a dramatic statement of the evermind's impatience, towering buildings collapsed, full metal structures fell in upon themselves. Hearing the thundering sounds and feeling the floor shake beneath him, the independent robot was not impressed.

Too many times he had witnessed such overblown theatrics. Omnius certainly enjoyed running the show, for better and often for worse, though Erasmus continually tried to control the evermind's excesses. The future depended on it - the future that Erasmus had ordained.

He dug through the projections that he'd digested from trillions of datapoints. All of his results were colored to fit precisely the prophecies he had formulated himself.

Omnius believed them all. The gullible evermind relied too much on filtered information, and the robot played him well.

Given the proper parameters, Erasmus was absolutely certain the millennia ahead would turn out properly.

***

- the Oracle of Time

What remained of Norma Cenva's ancient corporeal form was confined inside a chamber that had been built and modified around her during thousands of years. But her mind knew no physical boundaries. She was only tenuously connected to flesh, a biological generator of pure thought. The Oracle of Time.

Her mental links to the fabric of the universe gave her the ability to travel anywhere along infinite possibilities. She could see the future and the past, but not always with perfect clarity.

Her brain was such that she could touch the Infinite and almost - almost - comprehend it.

Her nemesis, the evermind, had laid down a vast electronic network throughout the fabric of space, a complex tachyon road map that most people could not see. Omnius used it as a net to sift for his prey, but so far he had not managed to snare the no-ship.

Long ago, Norma had created the precursor to the Guild as a means of fighting the thinking machines. Since that time, the Guild had taken on a life of its own, growing away from her while she stretched herself farther into the cosmos. Politics between planets, power struggles between the Navigator faction and the human Administrators, monopolies on valuable commodities such as soostones, Ixian technologies, or melange - such problems did not concern her.

Keeping watch over mankind required an investment of her mental currency. She felt the turmoil in civilization, knew the great schism in the Guild. She would have chastised the Administrators for creating such a crisis, if she could only remember how to speak to such small people. Norma found it exhausting to talk in simple enough terms to make herself comprehensible even to her advanced Navigators. She had to make them understand the true Enemy, so that they could shoulder the burden of fighting.

If the Oracle of Time did not attend to grander priorities, no one else would. No one else in the universe could possibly do it. With her prescience, she grasped what was most important: Find the lost no-ship.

The final Kwisatz Haderach was aboard, and Kralizec's black cloud had already released its torrents. But Omnius was searching for the same thing and might get to it first.

She had felt the recent struggles between the Bene Gesserits and the Honored Matres.

Before that she had witnessed the original Scattering and Famine Times, as well as the extended life and traumatic death of the God Emperor. But all of those events were little more than background noise.

Find the no-ship.

As she had always foreseen and feared, the unrelenting foe had come back. No matter what guise the thinking machines now wore, regardless of how much they had changed, the Enemy was still the Enemy.

And Kralizec is well under way.

While her prescience flowed outward and inward, ripples of time eddied around her, making accurate predictions difficult. She encountered a vortex, a random, powerful factor that could change the outcome in uncounted ways: a Kwisatz Haderach, a person as anomalous as Norma Cenva herself, a wildcard variable.

Omnius wanted to guide and control that special human. The ever-mind and his Face Dancers had sought the no-ship for years, but so far Duncan Idaho had eluded capture.

Even the Oracle had been unable to find him again.

Norma had done her best to thwart the Enemy every step of the way. She had saved the no-ship, hoping to protect the people onboard, but she had lost contact afterward.

Something on the ship was more effective than a no-field at blinding her search. She could only hope the thinking machines were as blind.

The Oracle's search continued, her thoughts reeling out in delicate probes. Alas, the vessel simply was not there.

In some mysterious manner, the passengers hid it from her... assuming it had not been destroyed.

Though her prescience was not clear, Norma realized that time was growing shorter and shorter, for everyone. The crux point had to occur soon. Thus, she needed to gather her allies. The foolish Administrators had reconfigured many of their great ships, installing artificial controls-like thinking machines! - so that she could no longer call upon them through her paranormal means. But she could still command a thousand of her loyal Navigators. She would make them ready for battle, the final battle.

As soon as she found the no-ship....

The Oracle of Time expanded her mind, casting her thoughts into the void like a fisherman, until the neural ache was incredible. She pushed harder than ever, stretching her boundaries beyond anything she had previously attempted. No price of pain could be too great. She knew full well the consequences of failure.

All around her, a vast clock ticked.

***

- SHEEANA, confidential no-ship journals

Flying ever onward, the Ithaca reeled from the recent spate of damage. And the saboteur continued to elude them. What more can we do to track him down?

Even Duncan's most thorough Mentat projections offered no new suggestions.

Miles Teg and Thufir Hawat once again dispatched teams to inspect, and even ransack, the quarters of all passengers, hoping to find incriminating evidence. The Rabbi and his people complained about purported violations of their privacy, but Sheeana demanded their full cooperation. To the extent possible, Teg had been closing down sections of the immense vessel with electronic barricades, but the clever saboteur was able to get through anyway.

Assuming no further incidents, with the life-support, air-recirculation, and food-growth systems crippled, the passengers could not last more than a few months without stopping somewhere to replenish the stores. But it had been years since they had found another suitable world.

Duncan wondered: Is someone trying to destroy us ... or drive us to a particular place?

With no starmaps or reliable guidance, he tried to use his uncanny prescience one more time. Another big gamble. Activating the Holtzman engines and closing his eyes, Duncan folded space again, spinning the cosmic roulette wheel -

And the no-ship emerged, intact but still lost, at the perimeter of a star system.

A yellow sun with a necklace of worlds, including a terrestrial planet that orbited at the appropriate distance to support life. Possibly habitable, certainly with oxygen and water that the Ithaca could take aboard. A chance ...

Others had gathered on the navigation bridge by the time the no-ship approached the uncharted world. Sheeana got down to business. "What do we have here? Breathable air?

Food? A place to live?"

Gazing through the observation window, Duncan was pleased at what he saw. "The instruments say yes. I suggest we send a team immediately."

"Resupply is not good enough," Garimi said, her tone gruff. "It never was. We should consider remaining here, if this is the kind of world we've been looking for."

"We considered that at the planet of the Handlers, too," Sheeana said.

"If the saboteur drove us here, we need to be very cautious," Duncan said. "I know it was a random foldspace jump, but I'm still troubled. Our pursuers cast a wide net. I would not be quick to dismiss the possibility that this place is a trap."

"Or our salvation," Garimi suggested.

"We'll have to see for ourselves," Teg said. Working with the bridge controls, he displayed high-resolution images on the wide screens. "Plentiful oxygen and vegetation, especially at the higher latitudes away from the equator. Clear signs of habitation, small villages, midsized cities, mostly far to the north. Large-scale meteorological scans show that the climate is in upheaval." He pointed to storm patterns, swaths of dying forests and plains, large lakes and inland seas shriveling into dust bowls.

"Very few clouds in the equatorial latitudes. Minimal atmospheric moisture."

Stilgar and Liet-Kynes, always fascinated with new worlds, joined the group on the high deck. Kynes drew a quick breath. "It's turning into a wasteland down there. An artificial desert!"

"I've seen this before." Sheeana studied a clear brown band like a knife slash across what had apparently been a lushly forested continent. "It's like Chapterhouse."

"Could this be one of Odrade's seed planets?" Stuka asked, from her usual position at Garimi's side. "Did they bring sandtrout here and disperse them? Will we find our Sisters down on that planet?"

"Untainted Sisters," Garimi said with a gleam in her eyes.

"Quite possibly," Sheeana said. "We'll have to go down there. This looks like more than a place to replenish our resources."

"A new colony." Stuka's excitement was infectious. "This could be the world we've been looking for, a site to reestablish Chapterhouse. A new Dune!"

Duncan nodded. "We cannot pass up an opportunity like this. My instincts brought us here for a reason."

***

- DUNCAN IDAHO, no-ship logs

Keeping themselves hidden from the planet's inhabitants, several teams of efficient Bene Gesserits launched a major effort to restock the no-ship with necessary air, water, and chemicals. They sent out mining ships, air scoops, water-purification tankers. That was the Ithaca's immediate priority.

Stilgar and Liet-Kynes insisted on going down to inspect the growing desert band.

Seeing the passion on the faces of the two awakened gholas, neither Teg nor Duncan could deny the request. Everyone was guardedly optimistic about finding a welcoming landscape here, and Sheeana wondered if this might be a place where she could release her seven captive sandworms. Although Duncan could not leave the veiling of the no-ship, because then he would be exposed to the Enemy searchers, he had no cause to prevent the others from finding a home at last. Perhaps this would be it.

Bashar Teg piloted the lighter down to the surface himself, accompanied by Sheeana and an eager Stuka, who had long wanted to establish a new Bene Gesserit center, rather than just drift aimlessly in space. Garimi had let her staunch supporter make the first foray, while she formulated plans with her ultraconservative Sisters aboard the no-ship. Stilgar and Liet were most eager just to set foot on the desert - a real desert with open skies and endless sands.

Teg flew directly toward the ravaged arid zone, where an ecological battle was taking place.

If this was indeed one of Odrade's seed planets, the Bashar knew how voracious sandtrout would seal away a planet's water, drop by drop. Environmental checks and balances would fight back with shifting weather patterns; animals would migrate to still-untouched regions; stranded plant life would struggle to adapt, and mostly fail. Reproducing sandtrout could act much faster than a world could adapt.

Sheeana and Stuka stared through the lighter's plaz viewing windows, seeing the spreading desert as a success, a triumph of Odrade's Scattering. To the exquisitely prudent Bene Gesserit, even the ruin of an entire ecosystem was an "acceptable casualty" if it created a new Dune.

"The change is happening so swiftly," Liet-Kynes said, his voice tinged with awe.

"Surely, Shai-Hulud is already here," Stilgar added.

Stuka echoed words that Garimi had said time and again. "This world will be a new Chapterhouse. The hardships will mean nothing to us."

With the detailed information in their archives, the people aboard the Ithaca had all the expertise they needed to establish a new place to live. Yes, a colony. Teg rather liked the sound of the word, because it represented the hope of a better future.

Teg knew, however, that Duncan could never stop running, unless he chose to face the Enemy directly. The mysterious old man and woman were still after him with their sinister net, or after something on the no-ship, maybe the vessel itself.

The lighter descended with a rough roar through the china-blue sky. In the middle of the abrupt desert band, dunes stretched as far as he could see. Sunlight reflected from the sands into bone-dry air, and thermal currents jostled the ship from side to side. Teg wrestled with the guidance systems.

In the back, Stilgar chuckled. "Just like riding a sandworm."

Cruising over the middle of the widening desert belt, Liet-Kynes pointed at a rusty-red splash that marked an eruption from beneath the surface. "Spice blow! No mistaking the color or pattern." He gave a wry smile to his friend Stilgar. "I died on one of those. Damn the Harkonnens for leaving me to die!"

Mounds rippled and stirred the top layer of sand, but they did not emerge into open air. "If those are worms, they are smaller than the ones in our hold," Stilgar said.

"But still impressive," Liet added.

"They have had less time to mature," Sheeana pointed out. "Mother Superior Odrade did not send volunteers on her Scattering until after the desertification of Chapterhouse was well under way. And we do not know how long the wandering Sisters took to get here."

Below, obvious lines marked the rapid expansion of the sandy waste-land, like ripples on a pond. At the fringes were die-off perimeters, places where all vegetation had perished and the dirt had become blowing dust. The encroaching desert had created ghost forests and inundated villages.

Flying low, searching with uneasy anticipation, Teg discovered half-buried rooftops, the pinnacles of once proud buildings drowned under the spreading desert. In one shocking glimpse, he saw a high dock and part of a capsized boat that sat atop a blistering dune.

"I look forward to seeing our Bene Gesserit Sisters." Stuka sounded eager. "Obviously they succeeded here in their mission."

"I expect they will welcome us," Sheeana admitted.

After seeing the city drowned in sand, Teg did not think the original inhabitants of this planet would have appreciated what the refugee Sisters had done.

As the lighter followed the northern edge of the desert, the scanners picked out small huts and tents erected just beyond the sand's reach. Teg wondered how often the nomadic villages were required to move. If the arid zone expanded as rapidly as it had on Chapterhouse, this world would be losing thousands of acres every day - and accelerating as sandtrout continued to steal precious water.

"Set down at one of those settlements, Bashar," Sheeana said to him. "Any of our lost Sisters could be here on the edge of the dunes to monitor the progress."

"I long to feel real sand under my boots again," Stilgar muttered.

"It's all so fascinating," Liet said.

As Teg circled above one of the nomadic villages, people ran out and pointed up at them.

Sheeana and Stuka pressed excitedly against the plaz windows, searching for distinctive dark Bene Gesserit robes, but they saw none.

A formation of rocks towered over the village, a bulwark offering shelter against blowing sand and dust. People, waving, stood atop the pinnacles, but Teg could not determine if the gestures were friendly or threatening.

"See, they cover their heads and faces with cloths and filters," Liet said. "The increased aridity forces them to adapt. In order to live here on the edge of the dry dunes, they are already learning to conserve bodily moisture."

"We could teach them how to make real stillsuits," Stilgar said with a smile. "It has been a long time since I wore a decent one. I spent a dozen years aboard that ship, drowning my lungs with moisture. I can't wait to taste dry air again!"

Teg found an open landing area and brought the lighter down. He felt unaccountably troubled as the natives scurried toward them. "Those are obviously nomadic camps.

Why wouldn't they move inland, to where the climate is more hospitable?"

"People adapt," Sheeana said.

"But why would they have to? Yes, the desert belt is growing, but there are still plenty of wide forests, even cities not far from here. Those people could outrun the spreading dunes for generations to come. Yet they stubbornly remain here."

Before the hatch opened to let in a breath of parched air, the nomads encircled the craft.

Sheeana and Stuka, both wearing traditional dark robes from Chapterhouse so that their refugee Sisters would recognize them, boldly led the way. Teg followed with Stilgar and Liet.

"We are Bene Gesserit," Sheeana called to the people in universal Galach. "Are any of our Sisters among you?" Shielding her eyes against the brightness, she searched the few weathered female faces she saw, but got no response.

"Perhaps another village would be best," Teg suggested in a whisper. His tactical senses were alert.

"Not yet."

An elderly man drew closer, pushing a filter mask away from his face. "You ask for Bene Gesserits? Here on Qelso?" Though coarse, his accent was understandable. Despite his age, he appeared to be healthy and energetic.

Taking the lead, Stuka stepped ahead of Sheeana. "The ones who wore black robes, like ours. Where are they?"

"All dead." The old man's eyes flashed.

Stuka's suspicion came too late. Moving like a striking snake, the man hurled a hidden knife from his sleeve, with deadly accuracy. At an unseen signal the rest of the throng rushed forward.

Stuka plucked clumsily at the blade that protruded from her chest but could not make her fingers work. Crumpling to her knees, she tumbled sideways off the lighter's ramp.

Sheeana was already moving, retreating. Teg shouted for Liet and Stilgar to get back inside the ship as he drew one of the stun weapons he had brought from the no-ship's armory. A large rock struck Stilgar in the head, and Liet helped his young friend, trying to drag him back into the lighter. Teg fired a swath of silvery energy, making part of the dusty mob collapse, but more knives and stones clattered at them.

Frenzied people rushed the ramp from all sides, jumping at Teg. Many hands grabbed his wrist before he could fire again, and someone ripped the stunner out of his grip.

More took hold of Liet by the shoulders, pulling him away.

Sheeana fought with a whirlwind of blows from her repertoire of Bene Gesserit fighting techniques. Soon a crowd of fallen attackers lay around her.

With a roar, Teg prepared to lurch into his hyperaccelerated metabolism, with which he could easily dodge blows and weapons, but a silvery beam from his own stunner gushed out like tinkling rain, dropping the Bashar, and then Sheeana.

* * *

Stuka's body lay near the ramp while the attackers ransacked the lighter for equipment and hauled things off.

A group of men lifted Stuka's body. The old man retrieved his knife, yanking it from the dead woman's chest and wiping it on her robe with an expression of revulsion.

He glowered at the corpse and spat, then marched toward the prisoners. Looking at the three young men, he shook his head in disapproval. "I did not introduce myself.

You may call me Var."

Defiantly, Sheeana glared up at him. "Why have you done this to us? You said you knew of the Bene Gesserit order."

Var's face contorted, as if he had hoped to avoid speaking to her. He leaned close to Sheeana. "Yes, we know the Bene Gesserit. They came here years ago and delivered their demon creatures to our world. An experiment, they said. An experiment? Look what they did to our beautiful land! It is becoming nothing more than useless sand."

He held his knife, considered Sheeana for a long moment, then sheathed it. "When we finally realized what those women were doing, we killed them all, but too late.

Our planet is dying now, and we will fight to protect what's left of it."

***

- CHOAM primary commercial directive

When yet another Navigator died in his tank, few of the Spacing Guild's Administrators mourned the loss. The giant Heighliner was simply brought back to the Junction shipyards to be refit with one of the Ixian mathematical compilers. It was considered progress.

After long years of practice, Khrone easily concealed his pleasure at the sight.

So far every aspect of the wide-reaching plan had proceeded as expected, one domino falling after another. Posing in his familiar disguise as an Ixian inspection engineer, the leader of the Face Dancer myriad waited on a high, copper-floored platform. He observed the clamorous shipyards, while warm breezes and industrial fumes drifted around him.

Nearby, the human administrator Rentel Gorus was not quite as proficient at covering his satisfaction. He blinked his milky eyes and looked up toward the piloting bay of the ancient, decommissioned ship. "Ardrae was one of the oldest remaining Navigators in our commercial fleet. Even with his spice supplies drastically cut, he clung to life much longer than we expected."

A plump CHOAM representative said, "Navigators! Now that these drains on our resources are disappearing one by one, Guild profits should increase significantly."

Without prompting from his master, the Mentat assistant recited, "Knowing the lifetime of that Navigator, and considering the quantities of melange required to institute his initial mutation and conversion, I have calculated the total amount of spice consumed during his service to the Guild. With fluctuating prices based on the relative glut during the Tleilaxu years and recent skyrocketing costs due to severe shortages, the Guild could have bought three full-sized Heighliners, complete with no-field capabilities, for the same cost in spice."

The CHOAM man muttered in disgust, while Khrone remained silent. He found it most effective simply to listen and observe. Humans could be counted on to draw their own conclusions (often erroneous ones) so long as they were pointed in the proper direction.

Savoring his secrets, Khrone thought of the numerous ambassadors the Guild had sent to the front, attempting to negotiate nonaggression treaties with the thinking machines, hoping to declare themselves neutral for the survival of the Guild. But many of those emissaries had been Khrone's Face Dancer plants, who intentionally achieved no success.

Others - the human ones - never returned from the encounters.

With Richese conveniently obliterated by rebel Honored Matres (secretly guided by Khrone's Face Dancers), humans had no choice but to turn to Ix and the Guild in order to obtain the technological items they required. The Junction shipyards had always been immense complexes for constructing huge interstellar ships.

Murbella's defensive fleet was growing with remarkable speed, but Khrone knew that even these efforts would not be very effective against the sheer size and scope of Omnius's military, which had been thousands of years in the making. The fabrication facilities of Ix (also controlled by Face Dancers) were still delaying the development and modification of the Obliterator weapons upon which the Sisterhood's defense relied.

And since every new Guildship was controlled by an Ixian mathematical compiler rather than a Navigator, the Mother Commander and her allies would have many surprises in store.

"We will build more ships to make up for the obsolescence of the Navigators," Administrator Gorus promised. "Our contract with the New Sisterhood seems infinite. We have never had so much business."

"And yet interplanetary trade is down drastically." The CHOAM representative nodded to both Khrone and Gorus. "How is the Sisterhood to pay lor these expensive ships and armaments?"

"They have met their obligations with an increased flow of mélange," Gorus said.

Khrone finally nudged the conversation where he wished it to go. "Why not accept payment in horses or petroleum or some other outdated and useless substance? If your Navigators are dying and your ships function perfectly well with Ixian mathematical compilers, the Guild no longer needs mélange. What good is it to you?"

"Indeed, its value is greatly diminished. Over the past quarter century, following the destruction of Rakis, the Tleilaxu worlds, and so much more, those who could afford spice recreationally have dwindled to a tiny number." The CHOAM representative glanced at his Mentat, who nodded in agreement. "Chapterhouse might have a monopoly on mélange, but by their very iron grip, by decreasing the amount of spice available for popular consumption, they have strangled their own market. Few people really need it anymore. Now that they have learned to live without spice, will they be so keen to reacquire their addictions?"

"Probably," Gorus said. "You need only drop the price, and we'd have a stampede of customers."

"The witches still control Buzzell," the Mentat pointed out. "They have other ways to pay."

The CHOAM man disdainfully raised his eyebrows. He made very expressive noises without words. "Luxury items during war? Not a good economic investment."

"Providing soostones is no longer easy for them either," Gorus pointed out, "since sea monsters are destroying the shell beds and attacking their harvesters."

Khrone listened intently. His own spies had brought back disturbing, but intriguing, reports about strange happenings on Buzzell, and a possible secret Navigator project centered there. He had demanded more information.

Khrone watched while jawlike machinery on a large crane pried open the pilot's bay on the gigantic decommissioned Heighliner. Heavy suspensor lifters strained and groaned as they pulled out the Navigator's thick-walled plaz tank. During the slow, clumsy extraction, the tank caught on the edge of the hole in the Heighliner's structure. A hull plate broke off and spun downward, striking the side of the Heighliner and ricocheting with a shower of sparks, then tumbling until it finally slammed into the ground far below.

Wisps of orange spice gas escaped from the Navigator's chamber, stray exhaust vapors leaking into the atmosphere. Only a decade or so ago, such a quantity of wasted spice gas would have been enough to buy an Imperial palace. Now the CHOAM representative and Administrator Gorus watched it dissipate without comment. Gorus spoke into a tiny microphone at his collar. "Deposit the tank in front of us. I wish to stare at it."

The crane raised the thick-walled chamber, swung it away from the hulk of the Heighliner, and brought it over to the observation platform. Suspensors lowered the container gently to the copper-floored deck, where it settled with a distressingly heavy thump.

Spice gas continued to vent from the chink in the thick plaz.

The melange vapors smelled strangely flat and metallic, telling Khrone that the Navigator had inhaled and exhaled them until very little spice potency remained. At a curt direction from the milky-eyed Administrator, silent Guild workers unsealed a cap on the tank, causing the remainder of the spice to blast out in a death rattle.

As the polluting gas drained, the murky clouds swirled and thinned, revealing a silhouetted form slumped inside. Khrone had seen Navigators before, of course, but this one was flaccid, gray-skinned, and very dead. The bulbous head and small eyes, webbed hands, soft amphibious-looking skin gave the thing the appearance of a large, misshapen fetus. Ardrae had died days earlier, starved for mélange. Though the Guild now had plenty of spice in their stockpiles, Administrator Gorus had cut off the Navigators' supplies some time ago.

"Behold, a dead Navigator. A sight few will ever see again."

"How many still survive among your Guildships?" Khrone asked.

Gorus seemed evasive. "Among the ships still in our inventory, only thirteen Navigators remain alive. We are on a death watch for them."

"What do you mean the ships 'still in your inventory'?" the CHOAM man asked.

Gorus hesitated, then admitted, "There were some still flown by Navigators, vessels that we had not yet managed to equip with mathematical compilers. They have ... how shall I say this? Over the past few months they have disappeared."

"Disappeared?

How many Heighliners? Each ship is hugely expensive!"

"I do not have precise numbers."

The CHOAM man had a hard voice. "Give us your best estimate."

"Five hundred, perhaps a thousand."

"A thousand?”

At his side, the Mentat held his silence, but he appeared as upset and startled as the CHOAM representative.

Trying to demonstrate control over the situation, Gorus said in an almost dismissive tone,

"When starved for spice, the Navigators grow desperate. It's not surprising that they take irrational action."

Khrone himself was concerned, but he didn't show it. These disappearances sounded like a widespread conspiracy involving a Navigator faction, something he had not expected. "Do you have any idea where they might have gone?"

The Guild Administrator feigned nonchalance. "It doesn't matter. They will run out of spice and die. Look at these shipyards and see how many vessels we are creating every day.

Before long, we'll make up for the loss of those outdated ships and obsolete Navigators. Have no fear. After so many years of bondage to a single substance, the Guild is making a good business decision."

"Thanks to your partners from Ix," Khrone pointed out.

"Yes, thanks to Ix."

Following a lull, the noise of the shipyards became very loud. Welders went to work, and heavy machinery lifted curved components into place. A cargo hauler half a kilometer wide brought in two sets of Holtzman engines. The men continued to watch the magnificent activities for a long time in silence. None of them even looked again at the pathetic dead Navigator in his tank.

***

- Bene Gesserit Archives, Analyses of Motivating Factors The next time Edrik's Hetghliner went to Buzzell on a run, the vessel left the planet carrying something vastly more important than soostones.

Hidden on the sealed laboratory decks was a package of the uniquely powerful substance extracted from the slaughtered seaworm's strange, dense organ. With extravagant optimism, Waff had named it "ultra-spice." Tests proved that the potency went beyond that of any spice ever recorded. This remarkable substance would change everything for the Navigator faction.

The Tleilaxu Master also understood the importance of his achievement, and meant to use it to his advantage. Without being summoned, he pushed past Guild security forces and made his way to the restricted levels reserved for the Navigator. Officiously ignoring all challenges, Waff opened thick doors until he stood before the plaz-walled tank that held Edrik in his expensive bath of spice gas. Having succeeded in restoring at least one breed of worms, Waff was no longer a sycophant. He could make brash demands of his own.

Waff's shortened ghola life span didn't give him much time to meet his critical goals, thus making him increasingly desperate. He was already well past his physical prime, and now his body was in a rapid plunge to degeneration and death.

He probably had no more than a year or so left.

Full of rigid defiance, Waff stood before Edrik's tank and said, "Now that my altered seaworms are capable of creating spice in a form accessible by Guild Navigators, I want you to take me to Rakis." He no longer had anything to lose, and everything to gamble. He crossed his thin arms over his chest in triumph.

Swimming slowly, Edrik drifted close to the plaz wall. The swirls of orange gas were hypnotic. "The new melange has not been proved in practice."

"No matter. Its chemistry has been proved."

Edrik's voice grew louder through the speakers. "I am troubled. In its original form, melange has complexities that cannot be revealed in any laboratory analysis."

"You worry unnecessarily," Waff said. "Seaworm spice is more potent than anything you have ever consumed. Try it yourself, if you do not believe me."

"You are in no position to make demands."

"No one else could have accomplished what I did. Buzzell will be your new source of melange. Seaworm hunters will harvest more ultraspice than you can possibly use, and Navigators will no longer be dependent upon the Bene Gesserit witches or the black market.

Even if the Sisters decide to harvest the seaworms and try to create another monopoly, you can ignore them. By changing the worms, instead of the planet, we can place them anywhere. I have given you the road to freedom."

Waff snorted, raised his voice. "Now I demand my payment."

"We kept you alive after the Honored Matres were overthrown on Tleilax. Is that not sufficient compensation?"

With a conciliatory sigh, the Tleilaxu ghola held his hands out. "What I ask will cost you little and gain you much honor, a blessing from God."

The Navigator wore a look of displeasure on his distorted face. "What do you desire, little man?"

"I repeat: Take me to Rakis."

"Absurd. The world is dead." Edrik's words were flat.

"Rakis is where my last body perished, so consider it a pilgrimage." He continued in a rush, saying more than he had intended. "In my laboratory I created more small worms from the remaining sandtrout specimens. I have strengthened them, made them capable of surviving in the harshest environment. I can repopulate Rakis and bring back the Prophet - " He abruptly fell silent.

At the first rumors that the seaworms were thriving, Waff had turned his efforts to the last few sandtrout in his original stock. Sculpting worm chromosomes for survival in a comfortable ocean environment had been a challenge; much more difficult, though, was the task of toughening the monsters to survive out in the blasted wastelands of Rakis. But Waff did not turn his back on difficulty. All along, his goal had been to bring the sandworms back where they belonged.

God's Messenger must return to Dune.

He studied Edrik, who stroked with webbed hands as he considered the request. "Our Oracle recently sent us a message, calling upon Navigators to leave the Guild and join her in a great battle. That must be my priority now."

"I implore you, take me to Rakis." As if to remind Waff of his imminent mortality, a twinge of pain shot through his chest and down his spine. He needed all his effort not to show the anguish of dying, the misery of failure. He had so little time remaining.

"Is that so much to ask? Grant me this one favor at the end of my life."

"That is all you wish to do? Die there?"

"I will spend my last energies on my sandworm specimens. Perhaps there is a way of reintroducing them to Rakis and regenerating the ecological systems. Think of it: If I succeed, you will have yet another source of mélange."

"You will not be pleased with what you find there. Even with moisture recycling, shelters, and equipment, survival on Rakis is more difficult than it has ever been.

Your expectations are unrealistic. Nothing useful remains."

Waff tried unsuccessfully to keep desperation out of his voice. "Rakis is my home, my spiritual compass."

Edrik thought it over, then said, "I can fold space to Rakis, but I cannot promise to return.

The Oracle has called me."

"I will remain there as long as necessary. God will provide for me." Waff rushed back to his private research levels. Intending to stay on the desert planet, undoubtedly for the rest of his life, he requisitioned all the supplies and equipment he might need for years, allowing him to be entirely self-sufficient on that bleak and lifeless world. After placing the order, he looked at his tanks where the new armored sand-worms writhed, eager to be released.

Rakis ... Dune ... was his destiny. He felt in his heart that God had summoned him there, and if Waff perished on the planet... then so be it. He felt a warm, soothing wave of contentment.

He understood his place in the universe.

* * *

Edrik surprised him by offering additional supplies and a small team of loyal Guild assistants to help with the labor of setting up a camp and administering the experiments.

Perhaps he wanted his own people on hand to see if the Tleilaxu man succeeded again with his worms. Waff didn't mind, so long as they stayed out of the way.

Without introducing himself to the silent members of his new team, Waff directed the transfer of his armored sandworm specimens from the isolated lab, his self-erecting shelters and his equipment, everything they would need for survival on the charred world.

One of the silent, smooth-faced Guild assistants piloted the lighter. Before they reached the dead surface of Dune, the Heighliner had already drifted out of orbit.

Edrik was anxious to be on his way to answer the Oracle's call, carrying its cargo of ultraspice and the tidings of new hope for all Navigators.

Waff, though, had eyes only for the blistered, lifeless landscape of the legendary world.

***

- ERASMUS, Laboratory Notebooks

When the virulent plague reached Chapterhouse, the first cases appeared among the male workers. Seven men were struck down so swiftly that their dying expressions showed more surprise than pain.

In the Great Hall where younger Sisters dined, the disease also spread. The virus was so insidious that the most contagious period occurred a full day before any symptoms manifested; thus, the epidemic had already sunk its claws into those most vulnerable before the New Sisterhood even knew a threat existed.

Hundreds perished within the first three days, more than a thousand by the end of the week; after ten days, the victims were beyond counting. Support staff, teachers, visitors, offworld merchants, cooks and kitchen help, even failed Reverend Mothers - all fell like stalks of wheat under the Grim Reaper's scythe.

Murbella called upon her senior advisers to develop an immediate plan, but from prior epidemics on other embattled planets they knew that precautionary measures and quarantines would do no good. The conference room doors were securely locked, because younger Sisters and acolytes could not be allowed to know the strategies being discussed here.

"Survival of the Sisterhood is our primary purpose, even as the rest of Chapterhouse dies around us." Murbella felt sickened to think of all the unprepared acolytes, spice-harvesting teams in the dune belt, transport drivers, architects and construction workers, weather planners, greenhouse gardeners, cleaners, bankers, artists, archive workers, pilots, technicians, and medical assistants. All the underpinnings of Chapterhouse itself.

Laera attempted to sound objective, but her voice cracked. "Reverend Mothers have the precise cellular control needed to fight this disease on its own battleground.

We can use our bodily defenses to drive away the plague."

"In other words, anyone who hasn't gone through the Spice Agony will die," Kiria said. "Like the Honored Matres did. That was why we pursued you Bene Gesserits in the first place, to learn how to protect ourselves from the epidemic."

"Can we use the blood of Bene Gesserit survivors to create a vaccine?" Murbella asked.

Laera shook her head. "Reverend Mothers drive out disease organisms, cell by cell.

There are no antibodies we can share with others."

"It is not even as simple as that," Accadia rasped. "A Reverend Mother can channel her inner biological defenses only if she has the energy to do so, and if she has the time and ability to concentrate on herself. But this plague forces us to turn our energies to tend the most unfortunate victims."

"If you make that mistake, you'll die, just like our Sheeana surrogate on Jhibraith,"

Kiria said with the undertone of a sneer in her voice. "We Reverend Mothers will have to take care of ourselves and no one else. The others have no chance anyway.

We need to accept that."

Murbella already felt the beginnings of exhaustion, but her nervous anxiety made her pace the sealed council room. She had to think. What could be done against such a minute, lethal enemy?

Only Reverend Mothers will survive.... She spoke firmly to her advisors, "Find every acolyte who is close to being ready for the Agony. Do we have enough Water of Life?"

"For all of them?" cried Laera.

"For every single one. Any Sister who has the slightest chance of survival. Give all of them the poison and hope they can convert it and survive the Agony. Only then will they be able to fight off the plague."

"Many will die in the attempt," warned Laera.

"Or all of them will die from the plague. Even if most of the candidates succumb to the Agony, it's an improvement." She did not wince. Her own daughter Rinya had perished that way, many years ago.

Smiling slightly with her wrinkled lips, Accadia nodded. "A Bene Gesserit would rather die from the Agony than from a sickness spread by our Enemy. It is a gesture of defiance rather than surrender."

"See that it is done."

* * *

Murbella hated to see the Sisters unable to control their suffering. It shamed her, not for their weakness but because she had been unable to prevent this from happening in the first place.

She went to where lines of makeshift beds held young acolytes, most of them terrified, some of them determined. The room smelled of rancid cinnamon - harsh instead of pleasant.

With her brow furrowed and eyes intent, the Mother Commander watched two stony-faced Reverend Mothers carry out a stretcher bearing the sheet-wrapped body of a young woman.

"Another one failed the Agony?"

The Reverend Mothers nodded. "Sixty-one today. They are dying as fast as from the plague."

"And how many successes?"

"Forty-three."

"Forty-three that will live to fight the Enemy."

Like a mother hen, Murbella walked up and down the line of beds, observing the plague-stricken Sisters, some sleeping quietly with new bodily awareness, others writhing in deep comas from which it was uncertain they would ever find their way back.

At the end of the row, a teenage girl lay with frightened eyes. She propped herself up in bed on trembling arms. She met Murbella's gaze, and even in her extreme sickness the girl's eyes glimmered. "Mother Commander," she said hoarsely.

Murbella moved closer to the young one. "What is your name?"

"Baleth."

"Are you waiting to undergo the Agony?"

"I'm waiting to die, Mother Commander. I was brought here to take the Water of Life, but before it could be administered the symptoms of the disease manifested themselves.

I'll be dead before the end of the day." She sounded very brave.

"So they will not give you the Water of Life, then? You won't even attempt the Agony?"

Baleth lowered her chin. "They say I will not survive it."

"And you believe them? Aren't you strong enough to try?"

"I am strong enough to try, Mother Commander."

"Then I'd rather you died trying, instead of giving up." As she looked down at Baleth, she was poignantly reminded of Rinya ... eager and confident, so like Duncan. But her daughter hadn't been ready after all, and she had died on the table.

I should have delayed her. Because of my need to prove myself, I pushed Rinya. I should have waited....

And Murbella's youngest daughter Gianne - what had happened to her? The Mother Commander had kept herself apart from the young woman's day-to-day activities, letting the Sisterhood raise her. But in this time of crisis, she decided to ask someone, Laera perhaps, to track her down.

Right now, Baleth seemed to show hope, looking with fervid eyes toward the Mother Commander. Murbella ordered the Suk doctors to attend to her immediately. "Time is shorter for this one than for the others."

From the doctors' skeptical expressions, Murbella could see they considered this a waste of the valuable Water of Life, but she stood firm. Baleth accepted the viscid draught, took a last look at her Mother Commander, and gulped the toxic substance. She lay back, closed her eyes, and began her fight....

It did not last long. Baleth died in a valiant attempt, but Murbella could feel no guilt about it.

The Sisterhood must never stop fighting.

* * *

By the fourth day of Murbella's desperate plan, it became apparent that Chapterhouse's supplies would not be sufficient. Sister after Sister consumed the poison, and many perished while struggling to convert the deadly toxin in their cells, trying to change their bodies.

The Mother Commander tasked her advisors to study the exact amount of poison necessary to trigger the Agony. Some Reverend Mothers suggested diluting the substance, but if they didn't give enough to be fatal, and thus effective, the entire experiment would fail.

Dozens more Sisters died. More than 60 percent of those who took the poison.

Kiria offered a hard but coldly logical solution. "Assess each candidate, and dole out the Water of Life only to those most likely to succeed. We can't gamble foolishly.

Each dose we give to a woman who fails is wasted. We must discriminate."

Murbella disagreed. "None of them has a chance unless they undergo the Agony. The whole point of this operation is to give it to everyone - and the most fit will survive."

The women stood amidst the bedlam of the dormitory rooms in the sick houses that had been converted from any building large enough to accommodate beds. Four lifeless bodies were carried past them by exhausted-looking Reverend Mothers. They had run out of sheets, so the corpses were uncovered, their faces twisted in a display of the incalculable pain they had suffered.

Ignoring the dead, Murbella knelt beside the bed of one young woman who survived.

She had to look at the casualty total from a different perspective. If they were all destined to die, it was a fruitless exercise to count those who perished. In that light, the only relevant number was the tally of those who did recover. The victories.

"If we don't have enough Water of Life, use other poisons." Murbella got wearily to her feet, ignoring the smells, the sounds. "The Bene Gesserit may have determined that the Water of Life is most effective at forcing the Agony, but long ago the Sisters used other deadly chemicals - anything that would push the body into an absolute crisis." She perused the young students, these girls who had hoped one day to grow up to become Reverend Mothers. Now each of them had one chance, and one chance only.

"Poison them one way or another. Poison them all. If they survive, they belong here."

A courier ran up to her, one of the younger Sisters who had recently survived the transformation. "Mother Commander! You are needed immediately in Archives."

Murbella turned. "Has Accadia found something?"

"No, Mother Commander. She ... you have to see for yourself." The younger woman swallowed.

"And hurry."

The ancient woman did not have the strength to leave her office. Accadia sat surrounded by wire spool readers and stacks of data-dense crystal sheets. She sprawled back in her large chair, breathing heavily, barely able to move. The old woman's rheumy eyes flickered open.

"So, you've come ... in time."

Murbella looked at the archivist, appalled. Accadia, too, had the plague. "But you are a Reverend Mother! You can fight this."

"I am old and tired. I used the last of my stamina to compile our records and projections, to map out the spread of this disease. Maybe we can prevent it on other worlds."

"Doubtful. The Enemy distributes the virus wherever they consider it strategic."

Already she had made up her mind to have several other Reverend Mothers Share with Accadia. Her extensive memories and knowledge must not be lost.

Accadia struggled to sit up in the chair. "Mother Commander, don't be so focused on the epidemic that you fail to see its consequences." She began coughing. Blotches had appeared all over her skin, the advanced stages of the disease. "This plague is a mere foray, a test attack. On many planets it is sufficient, but the Enemy must know the Sisterhood well enough by now to be sure we can fight this, at least to a point.

After they soften us up, they'll attack by other means."

Murbella felt cold inside. "If thinking machines destroy the New Sisterhood, then the remaining fragments of humanity will have no chance of resisting them. We are the most important hurdle Omnius has to overcome."

"So you finally understand the implications?" The old woman grasped the Mother Commander's hand to make sure she understood. "This planet has always been hidden, but now the thinking machines must know the location of Chapterhouse. I would wager that their space fleet is already on its way."

***

- a saying of Ancient Kaitain

After dragging Stuka's body away, the nomads separated Sheeana and Teg from Stilgar and Liet-Kynes. Apparently they saw the two boys - twelve and thirteen - as no threat, not knowing that both were deadly Fremen fighters, whose clear memories held many raids against the Harkonnens.

Teg recognized the strategy. "The old leader wants to interrogate our young ones first." Var and his hard-bitten comrades would assume the youths would be easily intimidated, not capable of resisting difficult questioning.

Teg and Sheeana were taken to a holding tent made of a tough, weather-worn polymer.

The structure was an odd mixture of primitive design and sophisticated technology, made for serviceability and ease of transport. The guard closed the flap but remained outside.

The windowless tent was just an empty enclosure, devoid of blankets, cushions, or tools of any kind. Teg paced in a small circle, then sat beside her on the packed dirt. Digging with his fingers, he quickly found a couple of sharp pebbles.

With Mentat clarity, he assessed their options. "When we do not return or report in," he said in a low voice, "we can expect Duncan to send another party down. He will be prepared. It sounds trite, but rescue will come." He knew that these nomads would crumble easily against a direct military assault. "Duncan is wise, and I trained him well. He will know what to do."

Sheeana stared at the door as if in meditative trance. "Duncan has lived hundreds of lives and remembers them all, Miles. I doubt you taught him anything new."

Teg gripped one of the pebbles, and it seemed to aid his concentration. Even in an empty tent, he saw a thousand possible avenues of escape. He and Sheeana could easily break out, kill the guard, and fight their way back to the lighter. Teg might not even need to take advantage of his accelerated speed. "These people are no match for me, or for you. But I will not leave Stilgar and Liet behind."

"Ah, the loyal Bashar."

"I wouldn't leave you, either. However, I fear that these people have disabled our ship, which would certainly tangle our escape plans. I heard them ransacking it."

Sheeana continued to stare at the shadowy wall of the tent. "Miles, I'm not so concerned about the possibility of escape as I am curious to learn why they kept us alive.

Especially me, if what they said about the Sisterhood is true. They have good reason to hate me."

Teg tried to imagine the incredible exodus and reorganization of populations on this planet.

Within years, all the inhabitants of the towns and cities would have seen the sands strangling their croplands, killing their orchards, creeping closer and closer to the city boundaries. They would have pulled away from the desert zone like people fleeing a slowly advancing fire.

Var's nomads, though ... were they scavengers and misfits? Outcasts from the larger population centers? Why insist on staying at the threshold of the advancing desert, where they would have to uproot their settlement and retreat constantly? To what purpose?

These were technologically capable people, and Qelso clearly must have been settled long ago during the Scattering. They had their own groundcars and low-altitude flyers, fast ships to take them back and forth across the dunes. If they weren't outright exiles, perhaps Var's people replenished their supplies in the distant northern cities.

Teg and Sheeana hardly spoke for hours as they listened to the muffled sounds outside, the dry wind pushing and tugging at the tent, the scritch of blowing sand. Everything seemed to be comprised of movement outside: The people sent out parties, marched back and forth, set machinery to work.

As Teg listened to the noises, he catalogued them in his mind, building a picture of the operations. He heard a pounding drill that bored a well shaft, followed by a pump dispensing water into small cisterns. Each time, after only a brief gush of liquid, the flow dwindled to less than a trickle and stopped. He knew that such problems, caused by sandtrout, had been the bane of drilling operations on Arrakis. Water existed in deep enough strata, but it was blocked off by the voracious little Makers. Like platelets at the site of a wound, sandtrout would swiftly seal off the leak. As he listened to the resigned complaints of these people, Teg realized that they were familiar with the routine.

When night fell, a dusty young man entered the tent through the flap held open by the guard.

He delivered a small meal of hard bread and dried fruit, as well as gamey-tasting white meat. The two captives also received carefully measured rations of water.

Sheeana looked at her sealed cup. "They are learning the fundamentals of extreme conservation. They begin to understand what their world will become." Obviously despising her Bene Gesserit robes, the young man glared at her and departed without a word.

Throughout the dark night, Teg remained awake, listening, trying to plan. The lack of activity was maddening, but he advised patience rather than rash action. They had heard nothing from Liet or Stilgar, and he feared the two young men might already be dead, like Stuka.

Had they been killed during interrogation?

Sheeana sat beside him, in a heightened state of alertness. Her eyes were bright even in the tent shadows. As far as Teg could tell, the guard outside never stepped away from his position, never even moved. The people continued to send out parties and skimmer ships throughout the night, as if the camp were the staging area for a war effort.

At dawn, old Var came up to the tent, spoke briskly with the guard, and pulled the flap aside.

Sheeana rose to a half crouch, ready to spring; Teg tensed, also prepared for a fight.

The nomad leader glared at Sheeana. "You and your witches are not forgiven for what you have done to Qelso. You never will be. But Liet-Kynes and Stilgar have convinced us to keep you alive, at least as long as we can learn from you."

The weathered leader brought the pair out into the bright sunlight. The wind flung stinging sand into their eyes. All around the settlement, trees had already died.

The blowing dunes had encroached another few feet past the prominent rock outcroppings during the night. Each breath was crackling dry, even in the relative coolness of the morning.

"You put the other Bene Gesserits to death," Sheeana said, "and killed our companion Stuka. Am I next?"

"No. Because I said I would keep you alive."

The weathered man led them through the settlement. Workers were already disassembling large warehouse tents to move them farther from the edge of the sand. A heavy groundcar rumbled by, full of crates. A bloated flyer circled and landed near the smooth sand.

Some kind of tanker?

Var led them to a large central building made from sectional metal walls and a conical roof.

Inside, a long table was cluttered with charts. Reports were fastened to the walls, and one entire wall displayed a polymer-paper map, a high-resolution topographic projection of the entire continent. Mark after mark showed the steady growth of the desert belt.

Men sat around the table sharing reports and raising their voices in a tumult of conversation.

Stilgar and Liet-Kynes, both dressed in dusty shipsuits, waved a greeting at the other two prisoners. The young men seemed pleased and relaxed.

As he scanned the setup, it was obvious to Teg that Stilgar and Liet had spent the whole previous day in the command tent. The old leader positioned himself between them, leaving Teg and Sheeana to stand.

Var pounded on the table, interrupting the cacophony. Everyone stopped talking, impatiently it seemed, and stared at him. "We have listened to our new friends describe what our world is sure to become.

We've all heard legends of long-lost Dune, where water is more precious than blood."

His face had a pinched look. "If we fail and the worms take over, our planet will become valuable only by the standards of outsiders."

One of the men snarled at Sheeana, "Damned Bene Gesserits!" The others glared at her as well, and she met their disapproval squarely, without comment.

Liet and Stilgar seemed to be in their element. Teg recalled the Bene Gesserit discussions over the original ghola project, how the long-forgotten abilities of those historical personages might become relevant again. Here was a perfect example. This duo of prominent survivors from the old days of Arrakis certainly knew how to deal with the crisis these people now faced.

The grizzled leader raised his hands, and his voice sounded as dry as the air. "After the death of the Tyrant long ago, my people fled into the Scattering. When they reached Qelso, they thought they had found Eden. It was a paradise for fifteen hundred years afterward."

The men glowered at Sheeana. Var explained how the refugees had established a thriving society, built cities, planted crops, mined for metals and minerals. They had no wish to overextend themselves or go searching for other lost brothers who had escaped during the Famine Times.

"Then a few decades ago everything changed. Visitors came, Bene Gesserits. At first we welcomed them, glad to have news from the outside. We offered them a new home.

They became our guests. But the ingrates raped our entire planet, and now it is dying."

Another man clenched his hands into fists as he picked up the story. "The sandtrout multiplied out of control. Huge forests and vast plains died within years - only a few years!

Great fires started in the wastelands, and weather patterns changed, turning much of our world into a dust bowl."

Teg spoke up, using his command voice. "If Liet and Stilgar told you about our no-ship and its mission, then you know we don't carry sandtrout and we have no intention of harming your world. We stopped here only to replenish vital supplies."

"In fact, we fled the heart of the Bene Gesserit order because we disagreed with the policies and leadership," Sheeana added.

"You have seven large sandworms in your hold," Var accused.

"Yes, and we will not release them here."

Liet-Kynes spoke quietly, as if lecturing children. "As we already told you, once it has begun, the desertification process is a chain reaction. The sandtrout have no natural enemies, and their encysting of water is so swift that nothing can adapt quickly enough to fight against them."

"Nevertheless, we will fight," Var said. "You see how simply we live in this camp.

We have given up everything to stay here."

"But why?" Sheeana asked. "Even as the desert spreads, you have many years to prepare."

"Prepare? Do you mean surrender? You may call it a hopeless fight, but it is still a fight.

If we cannot stop the desert, we will at least slow it. We'll battle the worms and the sands."

The men at the table muttered. "No matter what you say, we will try to hinder the desert's progress in every way. We kill sandtrout, we hunt the new worms."

Var stood up, and the others followed suit. "We are commandos sworn to slow the death of our world."

***

- LIET-KYNES, Planetology: New Treatise

Early the next morning, Var led his group of dusty, determined fighters to a landing zone of fire-baked pavement. "Today, my new friends, we'll show you how to kill a worm. Maybe two."

"Shai-Hulud," Stilgar said with great uneasiness. "Fremen used to worship the great worms."

"Fremen depended upon the worms and the spice," Liet replied quietly. "These people do not."

"With each demon we eliminate, we give our planet a little more time to survive."

Var stared out into the desert as if his hatred could drive back the sands. Stilgar followed the man's gaze across the deeply shadowed dunes, trying to imagine the landscape in front of him as lush and green.

The sun was just rising over an escarpment, glinting off the silvery hull of an old low-altitude flyer parked on an area of pounded gravel and flash-fused cement. Var's people did not bother with permanent landing strips or spaceport zones, which would only be swallowed up by the spreading dunes.

Despite the protests of the two young men, Sheeana and Teg were forced to remain behind in the camp as hostages, watched suspiciously. Liet and Stilgar had been accepted on the hunt because of their invaluable knowledge of the desert. Today, they would demonstrate their skills.

Var's commandos clambered into the heavily used craft. It had obviously weathered countless storms, rough flights, and incomplete maintenance; its hull was scuffed and scraped. The interior smelled of oil and sweat, and the seats were stone-hard, with only bars or straps for the passengers to hold onto.

Stilgar felt comfortable enough among the twenty weathered, grim men. To his trained eye, the commandos had a look of edgy anticipation, but they were too soft in the flesh for the adaptations they would soon face. With the rapid climate shift, even living in their nomadic camps at the fringe of the sand, these people remained unaware of the desert's true harshness. They would have to learn swiftly enough to face the escalating hardships. He and his friend could teach them - if they would listen.

Liet took his seat beside Stilgar and spoke to Var's men with genuine enthusiasm.

"Right now, Qelso's air still contains enough moisture that truly dramatic measures aren't required. Soon, though, you will need to be careful not to waste so much as a thimbleful of water."

"We already live under the strictest conservation," one man said, as if Liet had insulted him.

"Oh? You don't recycle your sweat, respiration, or urine. You still import water from the higher latitudes, where it is readily available. Many regions on Qelso are still able to grow crops, and people live a fairly normal life."

"It will get worse," Stilgar agreed. "Your people have much hardening to do before the planet reaches its new equilibrium. This is the first day of your new field training."

The men muttered uncertainly at hearing such words from two seeming boys, but Liet sounded optimistic. "It is not so bad. We can teach you how to make stillsuits, how to conserve every breath, every sweat droplet. Your fighting instincts are admirable, but useless against sandworms. You must learn to survive among the behemoths that will eventually take control of your world. It is a necessary shift in attitude."

"The Fremen did so for a long time." Stilgar seated himself beside his friend. "It was an honorable way of life."

The fighters held onto straps and spread their feet for balance, preparing for takeoff.

"That is what lies in store for us? Drinking recycled sweat and piss? Living in sealed chambers?"

"Only if we fail," old Var said. "I choose to believe we still have a chance, no matter how naive that sounds." He closed the ship's hatch and strapped himself into the creaking pilot seat. "So, if that doesn't sound pleasant to you, then we'd better stop the desert from gaining more of a foothold."

The flyer lifted from the dry camp and swung out over the ghost forests and hummocks of fresh dunes that were swallowing the remnants of grasslands. The engine sputtered periodically as they flew southeast to a region where sandworms had been sighted.

The craft seemed like a sluggish bumblebee, its tanks overloaded and heavy.

"We will stop the moving sands," one young commando said.

"Next you will try to stop the wind." Stilgar grabbed a dangling strap as a thermal updraft shook the craft. "In a few short years, your planet will be sand and rock.

Do you expect a miracle to turn the desert back?"

"We'll create that miracle for ourselves," Var answered, and his team murmured in agreement.

They flew across the wilderness of dunes, far past the point where they could see anything but buttery tan from horizon to horizon. Stilgar tapped a finger against the scratched windowplaz and shouted against the engine noise. "See the desert for what it is - not a place to fear and loathe, but a great engine to power an empire."

Liet added, "Already, small worms in the desert belt have created priceless amounts of melange just waiting to be mined. How have you survived for so long without spice?"

"We haven't needed spice for fifteen hundred years, not since we came to Qelso,"

Var called from the cockpit. "When you do not have a thing, you learn to live without it, or you don't live."

"We don't give a damn about spice," one of the commandos said. "I'd rather give a damn about trees and crops and fat herds."

Var continued, "Our first settlers brought a great deal of spice from far away, and three generations fought addiction until the supplies were gone. Then what? We were forced to survive without it - and we have. Why should we open ourselves to that monstrous dependency again? My people are better off without it."

"If used carefully, melange has important qualities," Liet said. "Health, life extension, the possibility of prescience. And it's a valuable commodity to sell, should you ever reconnect with CHOAM and the rest of mankind. As Qelso dries up, you may need offworld supplies for your basic needs."

If anyone survives the outside Enemy,

Stilgar thought to himself, recalling the ever-present threat of capture by the shimmering net.

But these people were much more concerned with their own local enemies, fighting the desert, trying to stop the unstoppable.

He remembered the great dreams of Pardot Kynes, Liet's father. Pardot had done the calculations and determined that the Fremen could turn Dune into a garden, but only after generations of intense effort. According to the histories, Arrakis had indeed become green and verdant for a time, before the new worms reclaimed it, and brought the desert back. The planet seemed unable to achieve a balance.

The battered craft flew low, its engines droning. Stilgar wondered if the noise of their passage would attract worms, but as he stared down at the hypnotic, oceanic dunes, he saw only a couple of patches of rust-colored sand that indicated fresh spice blows.

"Dropping signal vibrators," Var called, while throbbing canisters - the equivalent of ancient thumpers - tumbled out of the small bays below the cockpit. "That should bring at least one of them."

With a puff of sand and dust the thumpers plunged into the dunes and sent out droning signals. After circling back to make certain the devices were operating properly, Var selected two more spots within a radius of five kilometers. Stilgar could not determine why the craft still felt overloaded.

As they cruised in search of a worm, Stilgar described his legendary days on Dune, how he and Paul Muad'Dib had led a ragtag Fremen army to victory against far superior forces.

"We used desert power. That is what you can learn from us. Once you see we are not your enemies, we can learn much from each other."

Under Stilgar's firm hand, these people could come to understand their possibilities.

With the awakening of the populace would come the awakening of the planet, with plantings and green zones to keep the desert under control. Perhaps they could succeed, if they could just find - and maintain - an equilibrium.

Stilgar remembered something Liet's father had said to him once. Extremes invariably lead to disaster. Only through balance can we fully harvest the fruits of nature.

He leaned closer to the craft's observation windows and saw a familiar wrinkling of the sand, ripples of deep movement disturbing the smooth dunes. "Wormsign!"

"Prepare for our first encounter of the day." A grin wrinkled Var's grizzled face as he turned away from the cockpit. "The shipment that came in last night brought us enough water for two targets - but we need to find them."

Water! The heavy ship was carrying water.

The men shifted position, heading toward gunnery hatches and hoses mounted on the sides of the stripped-down flyer. The pilot banked back toward the first cluster of thumpers.

As the commandos prepared to strike, Stilgar mused about the strange turnabout. Pardot Kynes had spoken of the need to understand ecological consequences, that humans were stewards of the land, and never owners.

We must do a thing on Arrakis never before attempted for an entire planet. We must use man as a constructive ecological force - inserting adapted terraform life: a plant here, an animal there, a man in that place - to transform the water cycle, to build a new kind of landscape.

The battle today was the opposite. Stilgar and Liet would help fight to prevent the desert from swallowing all of Qelso.

Through the nearest window Stilgar saw a mound in motion, a bucking sandworm drawn toward the thumper. Liet crowded close beside him, and said, "I estimate it at forty meters.

Larger than Sheeana's worms in our hold."

"These have grown in the open desert," Stilgar said. "Shai-Hulud wants this planet."

"Not if I can help it," Var said. But as if to defy him, directly below the flyer an immense head surfaced and quested around, trying to track the conflicting sources of vibrations.

Long tubes protruded from the front and rear of the flyer. The commandos gripped their gun mountings, nozzles that could be turned and aimed. The flyer swooped low.

"Fire when ready, but conserve what you can. The water's deadly enough."

The fighters shot high-pressure streams from their hoses, blasting the sandworm below.

The drenching bursts were more effective than artillery shells.

Taken by surprise, the creature writhed and twisted its round head back and forth, convulsing. Hard ring segments split apart to reveal softer pink flesh between, and water burned like acid into the vulnerable parts. The worm rolled on the wet sand, in obvious agony.

"They are killing Shai-Hulud," Stilgar said, sickened.

Liet was also stunned, but said, "These people have to defend themselves."

"That's enough! It is dead - or soon will be," Var shouted. The small force reluctantly shut off their hoses, looking with hatred upon the dying worm. Unable to dig deep enough to escape the poisonous moisture, the mortally wounded creature continued to squirm as the flyer circled over its death throes. Finally the beast gave a great final shudder and stopped moving.

Stilgar nodded, his expression still grim. "There are necessities to life in the desert, hard decisions to be made." He had to accept the clear fact that this worm did not belong here on Qelso. No sandworm did. On the way back to the settlement, they encountered a second worm, drawn by the vibrations of their flyer's engines.

The commandos emptied their water reservoirs, and the second worm perished even more quickly.

Liet and Stilgar sat together in uncomfortable silence, wrapped up in what they had seen and the fight they had agreed to join. "Even though she doesn't have her memories back yet," Liet said, "I'm glad my daughter Chani did not see this."

Though the mood of the fighters was upbeat aboard the flyer, the two young men, remembering Arrakis, murmured Fremen prayers. Stil-gar was still contemplating what they had seen and done when Var yelled a strangled-sounding alarm.

Suddenly strange ships swarmed around them.

***

Around me I see a potential paradise, for Rakis is the birthplace of my beloved Prophet.

- Waff of the Tleilaxu

When he first glimpsed Rakis, the bleak ruins brought dismay to Waff's heart. But when Edrik's Heighliner deposited him and his small team of Guild assistants there, he experienced the joy of setting foot on the desert planet again. He could feel the holy calling deep inside his bones.

In his previous lifetime he had stood on these sands, face to face with the Prophet.

With Sheeana and Reverend Mother Odrade, he had ridden a great worm out to the ruins of Sietch Tabr. His ghola memories were corrupted and uncertain, riddled with annoying gaps.

Waff could not recall his final moments as the whores closed in around the desert planet, deploying their awful Obliterators. Had he run for hopeless shelter, looking behind him like Lot's wife for a last glimpse of the doomed city? Had he seen explosions and walls of flame searing the sky, sweeping toward him?

But the cells of another Waff ghola had been grown in an axlotl tank in Bandalong as part of the usual process. The secret council of the kehl had planned for the serial immortality of all Tleilaxu Masters long before anyone had heard of Honored Matres. The next thing he knew, Waff was awakened to his past life during a grand guignol stage show as the brutal women murdered one of his twins after another until just one of them - him - reached a sufficiently desperate crisis to break through the ghola barrier and reveal his past. Some of it, at least.

But not until now had Waff actually seen the Armageddon that the whores had wrought on this sacred world.

The ecosystem of Rakis had been fundamentally destroyed. Half of the atmosphere was burned away, the ground sterilized, most life forms dead - from the microscopic sandplankton all the way up to the giant sandworms. It made the old Dune seem comfortable by comparison.

The sky was a dark purple, touched with an underburn of orange. As their ship circled, searching for a spot less hellish than others, Waff studied a panel of atmospheric readings.

The moisture content was abnormally high. At some point in its geologic history, Arrakis had possessed open water, but sandtrout had sealed it all away.

During the bombardment, underground rivers and seas must have been vaporized as they were released from aquifers.

The Honored Matres' horrific weapons had not only turned the soft dunes to a baked moonscape, they had also thrown up great clouds of dust that had not settled entirely out of the atmosphere, even decades later. The Coriolis storms would be worse than ever before.

He and his team would likely have to wear special bodily protection and supplemental breather masks; their small dwelling huts would need to be sealed and pressurized.

Waff didn't mind. Was that so different from wearing a stillsuit? By degrees, perhaps, but not fundamentally harder.

His lighter circled over the remains of a sprawling metropolis that had been called Arrakeen in the days of Muad'Dib, then the Festival City of Onn during the reign of the God Emperor, and later - after Leto II's death - the moated city of Keen.

No longer concerned about secrecy, now that the seaworms had successfully taken hold on Buzzell, Waff was happy to have four assistants help him with the hard work he was sure to face on this Obliterator-blasted planet.

Studying the surface, he discerned lumpy geometric shapes that had once been angled streets and tall buildings. Surprisingly, in the dimness of seared daylight, he also spotted numerous artificial illumination sources and a few dark structures of recent construction.

"There seems to be a camp down there. Who else would come to Rakis? What could they possibly want here?"

"The same as us," said the Guildsman. "Spice."

He shook his head. "Too little here anymore, at least until we bring back the worms.

No one else has that skill."

"Pilgrims perhaps? There may still be those who make a hajj," a second assistant said.

Waff knew that a dizzying mishmash of religious splinter groups and cults had sprung from Rakis.

"More likely," suggested a third Guildsman, "they are treasure hunters."

Waff quoted quietly from the Cant of the Shariat: " 'When greed and desperation are coupled, men accomplish superhuman feats - though for the wrong reasons.'"

He considered choosing a different place for their base camp, then accepted the idea that joining resources with the strangers might help them all last longer in the harsh environment.

No one knew when - or if - Edrik might be coming back for them, or how long the sandworm work would take, or how much longer Waff himself would last.

He planned to be here for the remainder of his days.

After the lighter landed unannounced at the edge of the camp, the Guildsmen waited for instructions from Waff. The Tleilaxu man settled goggles over his eyes to protect against the caustic wind, and emerged. For long journeys outside, he might have to wear a supplemental oxygen mask, but the Rakian atmosphere was surprisingly breathable.

Six tall and dirty men faced him from the encampment. They wore rags wrapped around their heads, carried knives and antique maula pistols. Their eyes were red-veined, their skin rough and cracked. The foremost man had shaggy black hair, a square chest, and a rock-hard potbelly. "You are fortunate that I'm curious about why you are here.

Otherwise, we would've shot you out of the sky."

Waff held up his hands. "We are no threat to you, whoever you are."

Five men leveled their maula pistols, and the other slashed the air with his knife.

"We have claimed Rakis for ourselves. All spice here is ours."

"You've claimed a whole planet?"

"Yes, the whole damned planet." The first man tossed back his dark hair. "I'm Guriff, and these are my prospectors. There's damned little spice left in the burned crust, and it's ours."

"Then you may have it." Waff performed a perfunctory bow. "We have other interests, as geological investigators and archaeologists. We wish to take readings and run tests to determine the extent of damage to the ecosystem." The four Guild assistants waited beside him in complete silence.

Guriff laughed loudly and heartily. "There isn't much of an ecosystem left here."

"Then where does breathable oxygen come from?" He knew that Liet-Kynes had asked that question in the ancient days, curious because the planet had neither widespread plant life nor volcanoes to generate an atmosphere.

The man just stared. Obviously, he had not thought about this. "Do I look like a plane to logist to you? Go ahead and look into it, but don't expect any help from us. Here on Rakis, you are self-sufficient or you die."

The Tleilaxu man raised his eyebrows. "And what if we wish to share some of our spice coffee with you, as a token of friendship? I understand that water is more easily obtainable than in the old days."

Guriff glanced at his prospectors, then said, "We're happy to accept your hospitality, but we have no intention of reciprocating."

"Nonetheless, our offer stands."

* * *

At his command, the four Guildsmen erected the shelters brought down from the Heighliner, setting up armored sleeping tents and laboratory enclosures. Waff saw no reason to assist them. He was a Tleilaxu Master after all, and these were his workers, so he would allow them to perform their tasks.

While they drank a second pot of spice coffee, Guriff grew more relaxed. He didn't trust the diminutive Tleilaxu, but he didn't seem to trust anyone. He took pains to say he harbored no particular hatred toward Waff's race, and that his scavengers held no grudges against others of low social position. Guriff cared only about Rakis.

"All that melted sand and plascrete. By chipping away the upper crust of glass, we were able to get down to the foundations of the sturdier buildings in Keen." Guriff produced a hand-drawn chart. "Scraping out buried treasure. We found what we think is the original Bene Gesserit Keep - a few heavily barricaded bomb shelters filled with skeletons." He smiled. "We also uncovered the extravagant temple built by the Priests of the Divided God.

It was so huge we couldn't miss it. Full of trinkets, but still not enough to pay for our effort.

CHOAM is expecting us to find something much more extraordinary, though they seem happy enough to sell containers of 'genuine Rakian sand' to gullible fools."

Waff didn't reply. Edrik and the Navigators had obtained such Rakian sand for him to use in his original experiments.

"But we've got a lot more digging to do. Keen was a big city."

In his previous life, Waff had seen those structures before they were destroyed.

He knew the ostentation that the deluded Priests placed in all the rooms and towers (as if God cared about such gaudiness!). Guriff and his men would indeed find plenty of treasure there. But the wrong kind.

"The Priesthood's temple had collapsed worse than most other large buildings. Maybe it was a direct target of the Honored Matre attack." The prospector smiled with thick lips. "But deep in the sublevels beneath the temple, we did find chests of stored Solaris and hoarded mélange. A worthwhile haul. More than we expected, but not so much. We're after something bigger. The Tyrant buried a huge spice hoard deep in the southern polar regions

- I'm sure of it."

Waff made a skeptical sound as he sipped spice coffee. "No one has been able to find that treasure for fifteen hundred years."

Guriff held up a finger, noticed a hangnail, and chewed on it. "Still, the bombardment may have churned up the crust enough to reveal the mother lode. And, thanks be to the gods -

there are no worms left to torment us."

Waff made a noncommittal sound. Not yet.

* * *

While the Guild assistants finished connecting the generators and sealed the prefab shelters, the Tleilaxu researcher went back aboard the near-empty lighter. In the cargo hold he smiled paternally at his magnificent specimens. The armored worms were small but ferocious. They looked ready to tackle a dead world.

Their world.

Ages ago, the Fremen had been able to summon and ride sand-worms, but those original creatures had died out when Leto II's terraforming operations had turned Arrakis into a garden world with green plants, flowing rivers, and moisture from the sky.

Such an environment was fatal to sandworms. But when the God Emperor was assassinated and his body fissioned into sandtrout, the whole process of desertification began anew. The freshly spawned worms became far more vicious than their predecessors, tackling the huge challenge of recreating the Dune That Once Was.

Waff now faced a challenge many times more difficult. His modified creatures were armored to resist the most severe environment, with mouths and head ridges powerful enough to crack through the vitrified dunes. They could dig deep beneath the black surface; they could grow and reproduce - even here.

He stood before the dusty holding tank in which the worms churned. Each specimen was about two meters in length. And strong.

Sensing his presence, the creatures twitched restlessly. Waff looked outside to where the sky had turned the deep purple-brown of dusk. Storms swirled gritty dust through the atmosphere. "Be patient, my pets," he said. "Soon I will release you."

***

- Spacing Guild internal report

Edrik moved his Heighliner away from the ruins of Rakis, no longer concerned with the Tleilaxu Master. Waff had served his purpose.

More important, the Oracle of Time had summoned all surviving Navigators, and Edrik would give them joyous news. With the sea-worms obviously thriving on Buzzell, there would be plenty of ultra-spice for the taking. The unusual concentrated form might even be superior to the original spice: a frighteningly potent melange to keep Navigators alive without the meddling, greedy Administrator faction or the witches of Chapterhouse.

Freedom!

It had amused him to see Waff taking his worm samples to Rakis, hoping to establish a new spice cycle. Edrik didn't think the little researcher could do much there, but an alternative source of melange would be a bonus. But even without that, never again would the Navigators be strangled by power games. The four Guildsmen whom Edrik had sent to accompany Waff were spies and would secretly report everything the Tleilaxu achieved.

Inside his tank, Edrik smiled to himself, pleased that he had thought of all eventualities.

With the first package of Buzzell ultraspice safely stored in his security chamber, the Navigator guided his Heighliner out into the emptiness of space. Even the Oracle would congratulate him for this remarkable news.

Before he could travel toward his scheduled rendezvous, however, the emptiness rippled around him. When Edrik studied the distortions, he realized what they were. Moments later, scores of Guildships appeared like buckshot in space, winking through foldspace and emerging forward and back, above and below, to surround his Heighliner completely.

Edrik transmitted on a band that only fellow Navigators should have received. "Explain your presence."

But none of the imposing newcomers answered. Studying the glyphs and cartouches on the sides of the enormous hulls, he realized that these were new Guildships, guided by Ixian mathematical compilers.

The computer-controlled vessels closed in. Sensing the threat, Edrik transmitted with greater alarm, "What is your justification?"

The other Guildships formed a smothering blanket around his Heighliner. The silence of the great vessels was more intimidating than any voiced ultimatum. Their proximity distorted his Holtzman fields, preventing him from folding space.

Finally a voice spoke, flat and dull in timbre, yet unnervingly confident. "We require your cargo of seaworm spice. We will board your ship for inspection."

Edrik assessed these enemies, his mind racing through a labyrinth of possibilities.

The ships appeared to belong to the Administrator faction. They functioned with Ixian devices, so they had no need for Navigators or mélange. Why then would they want to confiscate the ultraspice? To prevent Navigators from having it? To ensure the Guild's complete reliance on Ixian navigation machines?

Or could this be another foe entirely? Were these ships flown by CHOAM pirates hoping to seize a valuable new asset? Witches from Chapterhouse wanting to force continued dependence on the Sisterhood's mélange?

But how would any outsiders know about the ultraspice?

While Edrik's Heighliner hung helpless in space, small interdiction ships emerged from the surrounding Guild vessels. He had no choice but to allow boarders onto his ship.

Though Edrik did not recognize him, a man wearing appropriate Guild insignia marched along the decks and ascended to the restricted level, brushing aside all security barriers.

Six well-muscled men accompanied him. The leader smiled condescendingly when he stood before the Navigator's tank and looked into it. "Your new spice has fascinating possibilities. We require it from you."

Edrik boomed from within his chamber, intentionally amplifying the speaker system.

"Go to Buzzell and obtain your own."

"This is not a request," said the man, his face bland. "We have learned the intensity of this substance and believe it to be a remedy for our difficult situation. We will take it to the heart of the thinking-machine empire."

Thinking machines? What did the Administrator faction have to do with the Enemy?

"You may not have it," Edrik repeated, as if he had any say in the matter.

The bland-faced Guildsman gestured to his burly bodyguards, and they withdrew iron-tipped hammers from their slick gray robes. The leader gave them a calm, matter-of-fact nod.

Panicked, Edrik swam backward in his tank, but he had nowhere to go. The muscular bodyguards did not care that he was inside the container or that exposure to the air would kill him. With thick arms, they swung their heavy sledges and smashed the thick plaz walls.

Jagged cracks split out in starburst patterns, and concentrated orange spice gas whistled out through the breaches. The guards did not react to the melange streaming into their faces, though the concentration should have made a normal human reel.

Their bland-faced leader watched like a man smelling an approaching storm while Edrik's atmosphere drained out.

When the air pressure was no longer sufficient to buoy him, the Navigator collapsed to the floor of his tank. Weakly, he raised his webbed hands and demanded answers in a voice that was little more than a gasp. The Guildsman and his companions offered no explanations.

Withering and twitching, Edrik lay on the floor. He extended a rubbery arm and tried to crawl, but with all the spice gas draining away, the air was too thin. He could no longer breathe, could hardly move. Even so, the Navigator was slow to die.

The bland-faced man stepped closer to the shattered wall, and his features metamorphosed.

Khrone said to his Face Dancer companions, "Take the concentrated spice. With this substance, Omnius will awaken his Kwisatz Haderach."

The others departed to search the decks and soon uncovered the hoard of modified melange. When the disguised guards returned to the interdiction ships, Khrone held one of the heavy packages in his arms. He inhaled deeply. "Excellent. Remove all of our people from this Heighliner. When we are safe, destroy the ship and everyone aboard it."

He looked coolly down at the dying Edrik. Only a few rusty curls of gas continued to ooze from cracks in the tank. "You have served your purpose, Navigator. Take solace in that." The Face Dancer strutted away.

Edrik continued to heave great breaths, but barely a scent of melange remained. By the time the computer-controlled Guildships got into formation in space, he could barely keep from slumping into unconsciousness.

The opposing vessels opened fire. Edrik's Heighliner exploded before he could utter a curse.

***

- a saying of Ancient Kaitain

The Ithaca's replenishing operations had taken place in the still-rich northern latitudes, far from any visible population centers. Garimi managed the complex process with dozens of flying craft from the hangar decks, leaving Duncan on the command bridge. He felt trapped there, unable to leave because of the protective veil that the no-ship usually afforded him. He hated having to remain behind while others did the risky work... and he didn't even know what the old man and woman wanted from him.

He had no idea what was going on back in the Old Empire, with Murbella and Chapterhouse.

He knew only that the Enemy was still searching for him - and he was still hiding, as he had been for decades. Was this truly the best way to fight, the best way to defend humanity? He had been adrift for as long as the Ithaca, and of late, the waters of uncertainty seemed deeper than ever.

It had been two days now without word from Teg or Sheeana and their team. If their group was simply meeting with the natives, someone should have checked in by now.

Duncan feared another trap like the one they had encountered on the planet of the Handlers.

Miles Teg had been his mentor and his student, and Sheeana ... ah, Sheeana. They had been lovers and sexual opponents. She had cured him and saved him, so of course he cared for her. He had tried to protect himself by denying it, but she hadn't believed him, and he hadn't believed himself. Both knew they had a bond unlike any other, different from the one he and Murbella had imposed upon one another.

As he studied the landscape below, it seemed to call to him. Many cities were discernible in the northern and southern forested latitudes. He felt he should be down there facing any possible dangers with the others, not stuck aboard the Ithaca, forced to remain safe and out of sight.

How long am I supposed to wait!

When he was Swordmaster of House Atreides he would never have hesitated. If it had been young Paul Atreides under threat, Duncan would have leapt in to fight for him, ignoring the intangible threat of the old man and woman. As the witches said in their oft-quoted Litany, I will face my fear. And it was about time he did so.

He closed his eyes, not wanting to see the spreading desert that looked like a seeping knife wound across the continent. "I will not ignore this." Duncan summoned Thufir Hawat as well as Garimi, who had recently returned to the no-ship with all of her flying craft after reloading the Ithaca's stores.

Duncan stood when they arrived. "We are going to rescue the landing party," he announced,

"and we're going to do it now. I don't know what kind of military force those people have down there, but we'll stand against it if the Bashar is in trouble."

Thufir's eyes brightened and his face flushed. "I'll pilot one of the ships."

Duncan remained stern. "No, you will follow my orders."

Garimi was taken aback by Duncan's bold comment, but nodded as she heard him rebuke Thufir. "Do you have instructions for us before we depart? Shall I command the mission?"

"No - I will do it personally." Before either could argue with him, Duncan strode toward the lift, and they were forced to follow him. "I'm sick of hiding. My plan has been to run and remain unobtrusive, staying one step ahead of that strange net.

But in doing so, I've left too much of myself behind. I am Duncan Idaho."

He raised his voice as they entered the lift. "I was Swordmaster of House Atreides and consort of St. Alia of the Knife. I acted as advisor and companion to the God Emperor. If the Enemy is out there, I won't leave the rest of humanity to face it themselves. If Sheeana and the Bashar need my help, then I'm going to help."

Thufir stiffened, then allowed himself a pleased smile. "You should have left the Ithaca long ago, Duncan. I don't see what you've accomplished by staying here. The no-field hasn't exactly offered perfect protection."

Garimi seemed pleased by Duncan's attitude. "My recovery teams took a good look at that planet down there, and it seems a fine place to settle. Does that mean you'll stop opposing my efforts and let us form a colony at last?"

The lift doors closed, and the group began to drop toward the hangar decks where the many ships were being refueled. "That remains to be seen."

* * *

"Do you think they'll kill us, after all?" Sheeana's tone was surprisingly matter-of-fact, as if she had accepted the inevitable.

"Maybe just you. You're the one they blame." He spoke without humor. Though they were allowed to sit on the ground outside, their captors still watched them closely.

She sipped from a small cup of water that had been provided. "Is that a joke?"

"A distraction." Teg glanced up at the sky. "We have to trust Duncan to decide on the correct response."

"Maybe he thinks we can handle this ourselves. Duncan has great confidence in our independent abilities."

"As do I. Should it become necessary, I could slaughter every one of these people."

He chose the word intentionally. Slaughter. As he had done with the Honored Matres in their fortress on Gammu. "And it would take me no longer than the blink of an eye. You know it."

Sheeana had seen him move against the Handlers, helping her, Thufir, and the Rabbi escape, and she had also seen how much that brief burst of energy had drained him.

"Yes, I know, Miles. And I pray it doesn't become necessary."

Off in the distance they heard the whining drone of the small flyer returning from the desert.

Teg's sharply attuned ears recognized its sputtering engine sound. The villagers gathered at the packed landing zone, anxious to receive the hunting party.

First, two specks appeared in the sky, flying low; then they were joined by many more dots, like a dispersed flock of migrating birds. The drone grew to a roar.

Teg shaded his eyes, identifying many of the flying craft. "Mining shuttles and lighters from the no-ship. So this is how Duncan plans to rescue us. He's trying to impress them. It appears he sent everything we have."

"We certainly have superior firepower. Duncan could have taken the direct method and rescued us by force of arms."

Watching the ships come closer, Teg smiled. "He's smarter than that. Like me, he wants to avoid bloodshed, especially in a conflict he doesn't entirely understand."

Did I teach him that lesson, or did he teach me?

As the Bashar reflected on their past lives, he didn't know the answer.

More than forty craft landed together in a flat, open space at the outskirts of the village. They weren't war vessels or armored attack ships, though some had defensive weapons. The Bashar stepped with Sheeana away from the tents, to face the largest mining shuttle. No one tried to stop them; the people were too awed by what they saw.

It surprised Teg to see Duncan Idaho himself march down the ramp of the lead craft, wearing his traditional House Atreides uniform, complete with polished boots and the starburst insignia of his rank. If the Qelsans had been gone from the Old Empire for fifteen centuries, they weren't likely to recognize any of the symbols, but Teg thought the uniform gave his friend a distinguished aura of command, and undoubtedly provided self-assurance.

Duncan swept his gaze across the confused villagers, finally spotting Teg and Sheeana. The relief on his face was obvious as he made his way to them. "You're still alive. And unhurt?"

"Stuka isn't," Sheeana said with an edge of bitterness.

"You shouldn't have left the no-ship," Teg said. "You're vulnerable now, visible to the searchers and their wide net."

"Let them find me." Duncan appeared stony, as if he had reached an inescapable conclusion.

"This endless chase and hiding accomplishes nothing. I can't defeat the Enemy unless I confront them."

Sheeana glanced nervously at the sky, as if expecting the old man and woman to appear suddenly. "Garimi could have led the attack, or even Thufir. Instead, you let yourself be swayed by your emotions."

"I factored them in when I made my correct decision." Duncan's face flushed, as if he were hiding the real answer, and he rushed ahead with an explanation. "By comline, I spoke with Stilgar and Liet-Kynes aboard the flyer. We intercepted them out in the desert, so I have some inkling of what's going on here. I know how they killed Stuka - and why."

"And you're surprised to see me alive?" Sheeana asked. "Grateful, too, I hope."

Teg interrupted. "The death of Stuka was a tragic overreaction. These people made assumptions about us."

Nodding, Duncan said, "Yes, Miles. And if I had made an overzealous response with superior firepower, that would have caused many more deaths and a much greater tragedy.

In one of my earlier lives I might have done exactly that, but I only needed to think about what you would have done."

Stilgar and Liet emerged with the commandos from the tanker. The two young gholas displayed a hardness to them now, and new life behind their eyes. The Fremen naib and the planetologist had found something on Qelso that reenergized them and transported them to other times.

Teg understood what all the gholas had gone through since recovering their memories.

They had been sheltered and comfortable aboard the Ithaca, forced to content themselves with reading about their pasts and watching the sandworms in the cargo hold, as if they were specimens in a zoo. But these gholas could remember the real Arrakis. The lives of Stilgar and Kynes had not been safer or more comfortable in the tumultuous old days, but there had been a certain sharp definition to who they were.

Others continued to emerge from the landed vessels: Thufir, Garimi and more than a dozen Sisters, muscular male Bene Gesserit workers, second-generation children born aboard the no-ship setting foot on a real planet for the very first time in their lives. Five of the Rabbi's followers stood in bright sunlight, looking around in wonder at the landscape, at the open spaces. Presently the old man himself emerged, blinking his bespectacled, owlish eyes.

Var looked admiringly at the mining shuttles and lighters, at his new companions Stilgar and Liet. He raised his chin. Apparently, Duncan had also spoken with the village leader at length during their flight back from the desert. "Duncan Idaho, you know what trials we face here, what we've been driven to do. We are the only ones who'll stand against the death of this planet. We did not bring the desert here.

You have no right to condemn us."

"I didn't condemn you for your struggle, but I can't condone what you did to our companion.

Years ago, Bene Gesserit visitors to your world acted without considering the consequences of what they were doing to you. And now it appears you have done the same thing."

The old leader shook his head. His eyes burned with anger and righteousness. "We killed the witches responsible for depositing sandtrout here. Finding another witch, we killed her too."

Duncan abruptly cut off what was sure to be a pointless argument. "We will take our friends and leave you. I'll let you have your fruitless fight against a desert you can't defeat."

Teg and Sheeana stepped forward, anxious to leave this place. Liet and Stilgar, though, held back and looked at each other. The latter squared his shoulders and said, "Duncan, Bashar ... Liet and I are having second thoughts. This is the desert - not our desert, but closer than anything we have yet encountered as gholas. We were brought back to life for a purpose. The skills from our past lives can be vital resources in a place like this."

Liet-Kynes picked up the speech as if he and Stilgar had rehearsed what they were going to say. "Look around. Can you imagine a world where our talents are more desperately needed? We are trained as fighters against impossible odds. We're used to desert combat.

As a plane-tologist, I know the best ways to control the spread of the dunes, and I understand more about the sandworm cycle than most people."

Stilgar added, his passion rising, "We can show these fighters how to build sietches in the harshest desert. We can teach them to make real stillsuits. One day, perhaps, we shall even ride the great worms again." His voice cracked. "No one can stop the desert, but we can keep the people alive. The rest of you go back to the no-ship, but the Qelsans need us here."

Sheeana stopped at the hatch of the nearest ship, clearly displeased. "That is not possible.

We need you, and all of the gholas, aboard the Ithaca.

Each one of you was created, raised, and trained to assist us against the Enemy."

"But no one knows how, Sheeana," Duncan pointed out, moved by what the two young men had said. "None of you can say for certain why we need Stilgar and Liet. And what exactly is our fight?"

"We are not your tools or game pieces." Stilgar crossed his arms over his chest.

"We are human beings with free will, regardless of how we might have been created.

I never asked to serve the Bene Gesserit witches."

Liet stood by his friend. "This is what we want to do, and who's to say it isn't our destiny? We could save a planet, or at least its population. Isn't that an important enough goal?"

Teg understood the dilemma all too well. These two had found a connection they could hold onto, a battle they could fight that did indeed require their specific abilities.

He himself had been created as a pawn, and he'd been forced to play that role. "Let them go, Sheeana. You have enough experimental subjects on the ship."

Thufir Hawat came up to the Bashar, relieved to see his mentor safe. He shot a disturbed glance toward Sheeana. "Is that all we are to them, Bashar? Experimental subjects?"

"In a certain sense. And now we must go back to our cage." He was anxious to leave this dying planet before other problems arose.

"Not so fast," the old Rabbi said, stepping forward. "My people are not, and never have been, part of your reckless flight across space.

We've always wanted a world to settle. Compared to metal decks and small chambers, this planet looks good enough."

"Qelso is dying," Sheeana said. The Rabbi and his hardworking companions simply shrugged.

Var scowled, as did some of the nomadic villagers nearest him. "We do not need any further drain on our resources. You are welcome here only if you intend to fight back against the desert."

Isaac, one of the strong Jewish men, nodded. "If we decide to stay here, we will fight and work. Our people are no strangers to surviving when the rest of the universe is pitted against us."

***

- DUNCAN IDAHO, no-ship logs

Liet-Kynes and Stilgar returned briefly to the Ithaca to retrieve it informational archives and some of the equipment they would need to monitor Qelso's changing climate. Liet even converted several spare sensor buoys into orbital weathersats, which the no-ship deployed.

He said his goodbyes to the other ghola children who had been raised with him - Paul Atreides, Jessica, Leto II. And Chani, his own daughter.

With a surge of emotion, Liet grasped the hand of the young woman, who was physically almost three years older than he. He smiled at her. "Chani, someday you will remember me as I was on Arrakis - busy in the sietches, working as the Imperial Planetologist or the Judge of the Change, carrying on my father's dream for the Fremen and for Dune."

Her expression was intense, as if she struggled to grasp some faint flicker of memory as she listened to him. Releasing her hand, he touched her forehead, her dark red hair. "Maybe I was a strong leader, but I'm afraid I wasn't much of a father. So I must tell you, before I go, that I love you. Then and now. When you remember me, remember all we shared."

"I will. If I remembered everything now, I'd probably want to go with you back to the desert.

And so would Usul."

Beside them, Paul shook his head. "My place is here. Our fight is bigger than one desert."

Stilgar took his friend's arm, urging Liet to hurry. "This planet is large enough for us. I feel in my soul that this is why Liet and I have been brought back, whether or not Sheeana realizes it. Perhaps someday, no matter how it appears now, we will all see that this is part of the greater battle."

Meanwhile, the Rabbi spoke to his fifty-two enthusiastic followers at their stations on the no-ship. Isaac and Levi had taken over many of the old man's duties, and at his signal they directed the Jews to gather their possessions and bring prefabricated shelters from the Ithaca's vast storage chambers. Soon, all of them had shuttled down to the surface, where they disembarked and began unloading the landed cargo ships under Isaac's direction.

On the ground Var strode through the activity, marshalling his followers. He ran a covetous eye over several of the craft that Duncan had brought down during his show of force. "Those mining shuttles would be a great help to us for carrying supplies and water across the continent."

Sheeana shook her head. "Those ships belong to the Ithaca. We may need them."

Var glowered at her. "Small enough compensation for causing the death of an entire world, I'd say."

"I didn't contribute to the death of your world. You, however, killed Stuka in cold blood, before

- "

Quickly, Teg went into Mentat mode, mentally inventorying the supplies and equipment they carried aboard the no-ship. To Sheeana, he murmured, "Although we had no part in the damage done to this world, we did resupply our ship here, and many of our people are staying behind as settlers. A token payment is not unreasonable." When she nodded, Teg turned to Var. "We can spare two shuttles. No more."

"And two desert experts," Liet piped up. "Stilgar and me."

"Not to mention a willing and hardy workforce. You'll be glad to have the Jews here." Teg had noticed how industrious the Rabbi's people were. He expected they would do well on this planet, even as the climate turned harsher. Someday, however, they might decide that Qelso wasn't their promised land after all.

* * *

But the people of Qelso would hear none of that. They met the Sisters' landed shuttle with drawn weapons. Var stood with his arms crossed over his chest. "We accept Liet-Kynes and Stilgar among us, as well as the Jews. But no Bene Gesserit witch is welcome here."

"No witches!" other Qelsans cried, their expressions suddenly murderous. "If we find them, we kill them."

Having accompanied them for a farewell, Sheeana tried to speak on Garimi's behalf.

"We could take them to the other side of the continent. You would never know about their settlement. I promise, they'll cause you no trouble."

But the incensed Qelsans were not inclined to listen, and Var spoke again. "Your kind act only for the benefit of the Sisterhood. We welcomed them once, to our deep and lasting regret. Now Qelsans act for the benefit of Qelso. No member of your Sisterhood is welcome here. Short of violence, I cannot be more clear than that."

Sending up a puff of dust with every step, the Rabbi trudged past tents and portable buildings toward the shuttle. He wiped sweat from his brow and came to stand before Teg and Sheeana, looking uneasily from one to the other. "I think my people will be happy here, by the grace of God." He kicked at the dry dirt with his shoe. "We were meant to have ground under our feet."

"You look disturbed, Rabbi," Sheeana noted.

"Not disturbed. Sad." To Teg he appeared crestfallen, and his watery old eyes seemed redder than usual, as if from crying. "I will not be with them. I cannot leave the no-ship."

Black-bearded Isaac draped a consoling arm around the elderly man's shoulders. "This will be the new Israel for us, Rabbi, under my leadership. Won't you reconsider?"

"Why aren't you staying with your people?" Teg asked.

The Rabbi lowered his gaze, and tears dropped on the hardscrabble ground. "I have a higher obligation to one of my followers whom I failed."

Isaac explained to Sheeana and Teg in a soft voice, "He wishes to remain with Rebecca.

Though she is an axlotl tank now, he refuses to leave her."

"I shall watch over her for all my remaining days. My followers will be in good hands here.

Isaac and Levi are their future, while I am their past."

The rest of the Jews surrounded the Rabbi, saying their goodbyes and wishing him well.

Then the weeping old man joined Teg, Sheeana, and the others on the waiting shuttle, which took them back up to the no-ship.

Twenty-Four Years After Escape from Chapterhouse

***

- MOTHER COMMANDER MURBELLA, address to the survivors of Chapterhouse As the epidemic burned itself out, the survivors - all of them Reverend Mothers - struggled to hold the Sisterhood together. No vaccines, immunity treatments, diets, or quarantines had any effect as the general populace died.

It required only three days for Murbella's heart to turn to stone. Around her, she watched thousands of promising young acolytes perish, diligent students who had not yet learned enough to become Reverend Mothers. Every one of them died either from the plague or from the Agony that was rushed upon them.

Kiria slipped into her former Honored Matre viciousness. On many occasions she argued vehemently that it was a waste of time to care for anyone who had contracted the plague.

"Our resources are better spent on more important things, on activities that have some chance of success!"

Murbella could not dispute her logic, though she did not agree with the opinion.

"We're not thinking machines. We are humans, and we will care for humans."

It was a sad irony that as more and more of the population died, fewer Reverend Mothers were needed to tend the remaining sick. Gradually, those women were able to turn to other crucial activities.

From a nearly empty chamber in the Keep, Murbella peered through the broad, arched window segments behind her throne chair. Chapterhouse had once been a bustling administrative complex, the pulsing heart of the New Sisterhood. Before the plague struck, Mother Commander Murbella had been in charge of hundreds of defensive measures, monitoring the constant progress of the Enemy fleet, dealing with the Ixians, the Guild, refugees and warlords, anyone who could fight on her side.

Far away, she could see the brown hills and dying orchards, but what concerned her was the eerie, unnatural silence of the city itself. The dormitories and support buildings, the nearby spaceport field, the markets, gardens, and dwindling herds ... all should have been tended by a population of hundreds of thousands. Sadly, most normal activity around the Keep and the city had halted. Far too few remained alive to cover even the most basic work. The world itself was virtually vacant, with all hope dashed in a matter of days. So shockingly sudden!

The air in the surrounding city was heavy with the stench of death and burning. Black smoke rose from dozens of bonfires - not funeral pyres, for Murbella had other ways to dispose of the bodies, but simply the incineration of contaminated garments and other materials, including infected medical supplies.

In an admittedly petty moment, Murbella had summoned two exhausted Reverend Mothers.

Telling them to bring suspensor clamps, she had ordered them to remove the deactivated combat robot from her private chambers. Though the hated machine had not moved in years, she had begun to feel that it was mocking her. "Take this thing away and destroy it. I abhor everything it symbolizes." The obedient women seemed relieved to follow her orders.

The Mother Commander issued her next instructions. "Release our melange stockpiles and distribute spice to all survivors." Every healthy woman was dedicated to tending the remaining sick, though it was a hopeless task. The surviving Reverend Mothers were utterly exhausted, having worked without rest for days. Even with the bodily control taught by the Sisterhood, they were hard-pressed to continue. But melange could help keep them going.

Long ago in the time of the Butlerian Jihad the palliative properties of melange had been an effective measure against the horrific machine plagues. This time she didn't expect spice to cure anyone who had already contracted the disease, but at least it would help the surviving Reverend Mothers perform the daunting work required of them. Though Murbella desperately needed every gram of spice to pay the Guild and the Ixians, her Sisters needed it more. If the unified Sisterhood died on Chapterhouse, who would lead the fight for humanity?

One more cost among so many. But if we don't spend it now, we will never buy victory.

"Do it. Distribute whatever is necessary."

As her orders were being carried out, she made calculations and realized to her dismay that there weren't enough Reverend Mothers left alive to deplete the Sisterhood's hoarded spice anyway....

Her entire support staff had been stripped away, and she felt isolated. Murbella had already imposed austerity measures, severely cut back services, and eliminated every extraneous activity. Even though most of the Reverend Mothers had survived the plague, it was not certain they would survive the aftermath.

She summoned those who were Mentats and ordered them to assess the vital work and create an emergency plan of operations, using personnel who were best qualified for the essential tasks. Where could they possibly get the workforce necessary to maintain Chapterhouse, rebuild, and continue the fight? Maybe they could convince some of the desperate refugees from devastated planets to come here, once the last vestiges of plague died out.

Murbella grew tired of simply recovering. Chapterhouse was only a tiny battlefield on the vast galactic canvas of the climactic war. The greatest threat still remained out there, as the oncoming Enemy fleet struck planet after planet, driving refugees like frantic animals before a forest fire. The battle at the end of the universe.

Kralizec ...

A Reverend Mother came running up to her with a report. The woman, barely more than a girl, was one of those who had been forced to attempt the Agony long before she should have, but she had survived. Her eyes bore a faint bluish tinge now, a color that would grow deeper as she continued to consume melange. Her gaze had a stunned, haunted look that penetrated to the depths of her soul.

"Your hourly report, Mother Commander." She handed Murbella a stack of Ridulian crystal sheets on which names were printed in columns.

In a cold and businesslike fashion, her advisors had at first provided her with simple numbers and summaries, but Murbella demanded actual names. Each person who died from the plague was a person, and each worker and acolyte on Chapterhouse was a soldier lost in the cause against the Enemy. She would not dishonor them by boiling them down to mere numbers and totals.

Duncan Idaho would never have condoned such a thing.

"Four more of them were Face Dancers," the messenger said.

Murbella clenched her jaws. "Who?" When the woman spoke the names, Murbella barely knew them, unobtrusive Sisters who called no attention to themselves ... exactly as Face Dancer spies would do. So far sixteen of the shape-shifters had turned up among the plague victims. She had always suspected that even the New Sisterhood had been infiltrated, and now she had proof. But, in an irony the thinking machines could not possibly grasp, the Face Dancers were also susceptible to the horrible epidemic.

They died just as easily as anyone else.

"Keep their bodies for dissection and analysis, along with the others. If nothing else, maybe we can learn something that will allow us to detect them among us."

The young woman waited while Murbella scanned the long list of names. She felt a cold whisper run down her spine as an entry in the third column of one sheet caught her eye. She felt as if she had been struck a heavy blow.

Gianne.

Her own daughter, her youngest child by Duncan Idaho. For years the girl had delayed passing through the Agony, never reaching the point where she was ready for the ordeal.

Gianne had shown great promise, but that was not nearly enough. Though she had not demonstrated herself to be ready, the girl - among thousands of others - had been forced to take the poison early, the only chance of surviving.

Murbella reeled in shock. She should have been at Gianne's side, but in the chaos no one had told the Mother Commander when her daughter would be given the Water of Life. Most Sisters did not even realize that Gianne was her daughter. The frantic, exhausted helpers would not have known. With her priorities set in true Bene Gesserit fashion, Murbella had tended to her official duties and had gone without sleep for several days in succession.

I should have been there to support her and help, even if I could only watch over her as she died.

Yet no one had informed her. No one had known that Gianne was special.

I should have thought to check on her, but I put it off, made assumptions.

With so many events crashing around her, Murbella had misplaced her own daughter's life.

First Rinya, and now Gianne, both lost to the perilous Agony. Only two other daughters remained: Janess was off at the battlefront fighting thinking machines, while her sister Tanidia, not knowing the identity of her parents, had been sent to join the Missionaria.

Though both of them faced risks, they might at least avoid contracting the horrific plague.

"Two of my children dead," she said aloud, though the messenger did not understand.

"Oh, what would Duncan think of me?" Murbella set the report aside. She closed her eyes for a moment, drew a deep breath, and straightened herself. Pointing to the name on the list of victims she said, "Take me to her."

The messenger glanced down, ran a quick assessment. "The bodies in that column have been hauled off to the spaceport. 'Thopter loads of them are taking off right now."

"Hurry. I must try to see her." Murbella rushed out of the hall, glancing back to be certain the young woman was right behind her. Though the Mother Commander felt disturbingly numb, she had to do this.

They took a groundcar to the nearby spaceport, where the fluttering hum of 'thopters droned.

On the way, the young Reverend Mother activated her commline, and in a quiet voice requested information.

She then directed the driver of the car to take a particular access road.

On all of the spaceport landing pads, large cargo 'thopters were being loaded with the dead, and were lifting off as soon as they were full. In normal, better times when Bene Gesserits died, they would be buried in the thriving orchards or gardens.

The bodies would decompose and provide nourishment and fertilizer. Now they piled up so fast that even large cargo ships could barely keep up with removing them.

The young assistant directed the driver to a specific grid in the landing zone, where a dark green 'thopter was being loaded by workers. Bundle after bundle of bodies went into the large hold. "She has to be in that one, Mother Commander. Would you ... would you like them to unload so that you can find and identify her?"

As the two women stepped out of the groundcar, Murbella felt stunned, but tried to steel herself. "Not necessary. It is only her body, not her.

Just the same, I'll allow myself enough sentimentality to accompany her out to the dunes."

Leaving the young Reverend Mother to tend to other duties, Murbella climbed into the

'thopter and sat next to the female pilot.

"My daughter is aboard," Murbella said. Then she grew silent, and stared glumly out the window.

A vibrating shudder passed through the 'thopter as it took off with jets and flapping wings. It would take them half an hour or so to get out to the desert zone, an hour the Mother Commander could ill afford to be away from the Keep. But it was time she desperately needed....

Even the best of the Sisterhood who had undergone the most arduous testing were dismayed by the very real and material tragedy - but not to the point of total surrender.

Bene Gesserit teachings showed them how to control base emotions, how to act for the greater good and see the overall picture. Upon watching almost 90 percent of a planet's population fall within a few days, however, the magnitude of the disaster - the extermination -

was breaking down even the strongest barriers in many Sisters. It was up to Murbella to maintain the morale of the survivors.

The thinking machines have found a cruel and effective way to destroy our human weapons, but we are not so easily disarmed!

"Mother Commander, we have arrived," the pilot said, her clipped words loud enough to be heard over the thrum of the wings.

Murbella opened her eyes to see clean desert, tan eddies of sand and dust curling from stray breezes. It seemed pristine and untouched, no matter how much human debris the Sisterhood dumped there. She saw other 'thopters circling in the sky, descending over the dunes and opening cargo doors to expel loads... hundreds of black-wrapped bodies in each aircraft. The dead Sisters tumbled out onto the sand like charred cordwood.

Natural elements would dispose of them far more efficiently than huge funeral pyres could.

The aridity would desiccate them, and scouring sandstorms would wear them down to bones. In many cases, the worms would simply devour them. A sort of purity.

Their 'thopter hovered over a small basin. Large swells of dunes swept up on either side, while dust kicked up by the 'thopter wings swirled around them. The pilot worked her controls, and the bottom doors opened with a weary groan. Bodies tumbled out, wrapped in fabric. They were stiff, their features covered, but to Murbella they were still individuals. One of those unidentified shapes was her own little girl... born just before Murbella underwent the Agony herself, just before she lost Duncan forever.

She didn't delude herself into thinking that if she had been at her daughter's side she might have helped Gianne survive. Passing through the Spice Agony was solely an individual's battle, but Murbella wished she could have been there.

The bodies spilled unceremoniously onto soft sand. Below, she could see serpentine shapes stirring - two big worms drawn by 'thopter vibrations or the thumps of falling bodies.

The creatures scooped up and devoured the human shapes, then plunged back beneath the sand.

The pilot lifted the 'thopter high enough to swing around, so that Murbella could look down and observe the horrible feeding frenzy. Touching the commline in her ear, the pilot received a message, then offered a faint smile to Murbella. "Mother Commander, there is some good news, at least."

After seeing the last unmarked body vanish below, Murbella wasn't in the mood for any sort of cheering up, but she waited.

"One of our deep-desert research settlements has survived. Shakkad Station. They were far enough out in the sand and had no contact with the Keep. Somehow they avoided the touch of the virus."

Murbella remembered the tiny group of offworld scientists and helpers. "I isolated them myself so they could work. I want them to stay completely cut off - no contact whatsoever! If a single one of us goes near, we could contaminate them."

"Shakkad Station doesn't have enough supplies to last long," the pilot said. "Perhaps we could arrange a package drop-off."

"No, nothing! We can't take the chance of contamination." She thought of those people as living at the center of a deadly minefield. But once the epidemic passed, perhaps these few could survive. Only a handful. "If they run out of food, they should increase their consumption of mélange. They can find enough to survive for at least a little while. Even if some of them starve, it's better than having every single one succumb to this damned epidemic."

The pilot did not disagree. As she stared out into the desert, Murbella realized what she and her Sisters had become. She muttered aloud, her words drowned by the thrum of engines.

"We are the new Fremen, and this whole besieged galaxy is our desert."

The 'thopter soared away, heading back toward the Keep, leaving the worms to their feast.

***

Hatred breeds in the fertile ground of life itself.

- Ancient Saying

The no-ship had flown away from the turmoil of the planet Qelso, leaving behind some of their people, some of their hopes and possibilities. On that world Duncan had taken a great risk, daring to leave the no-ship for the first time in decades. Had he revealed his presence?

Would the Enemy be able to find him now, seizing upon that clue? It was possible.

Though he had decided not to cower and hide, Duncan did not intend to bring possible destruction to all the innocent people on this planet. He would make another jump, cover his tracks. And so the Ithaca had risked another unguided plunge through folded space.

That was three months ago.

Through a thick plaz viewport, Scytale had watched Qelso dwindle, then suddenly vanish into blankness. He had never been allowed to set foot off the ship. Judging by what he had seen, he would have been happy to settle on that world, in spite of its spreading desert.

Although he had his memories back, Scytale found that a part of him missed his father, his predecessor, himself. His mind now contained everything he needed. But he wanted more.

With this new body, the Tleilaxu Master should have another century before cumulative genetic errors caused him to break down again. Enough time to solve many problems.

But when another hundred years were gone, he would still be the last Tleilaxu Master, the only remaining keeper of the Great Belief. Unless he could use the cells of the Council of Masters stored in his nullentropy capsule. Someday, maybe the witches would allow him to employ the axlotl tanks for the purpose the Tleilaxu had intended them.

Back at Qelso, he had agonized over whether to remain there and create a new homeland for the Tleilaxu. Could he build the proper laboratories and equipment? Recruit followers from among the people there? Should he have taken that gamble? Young Scytale had studied the scriptures, meditated long and hard, and finally decided against staying behind -

the same decision the Rabbi had reached. On Qelso, he wasn't likely ever to have access to the axlotl technology he needed. His decision was perfectly logical.

The Rabbi's recent misery and anger, however, was not so easily explained. No one had forced him into his choice. Ever since the ship left the planet and its spreading deserts, the old man had been marching up and down the corridors, spreading dissent like poison. He was the only one of his kind left aboard. Just like Scytale.

The aged holy man ate with the other refugees, grumbling about how harshly he was treated and how difficult it must be for his people to establish a new Zion without his guidance.

Garimi and her hardliners, having been forcibly turned away from the planet, had expressed no sympathy for his grievances.

Watching it all, Scytale concluded that the Rabbi was the sort of person who placed external blame in order to position himself as a martyr. Since he would not leave the axlotl tank that had once been Rebecca, he could cling to his hatred of the Bene Gesserit order, faulting them instead of his own bad choices.

Well, Scytale thought, there was certainly enough hatred to go around.

* * *

Yet he did not fully accept himself. There was one more critical step to take.

In his hand he held an indelible scriber filled with dark ink that would leave a permanent stain. Not exactly a tattoo, and without any implant or attendant deep Imperial Conditioning, but close enough. His hands were steady, his strokes confident.

I am a Suk doctor, a surgeon. I can draw a simple geometric shape.

A diamond, prominent on his forehead, perfectly centered. Without hesitation, he drew another stroke, connected the lines, and filled in the skin of his brow. When he was finished, he examined himself again. Wellington Yueh looked back at him from the mirror, Suk doctor and personal physician to House Vernius and then House Atreides.

The Traitor.

He set the scriber aside, dressed in a clean doctor's smock, and headed for the medical center. Like the old Rabbi, he was as qualified as any Bene Gesserit doctor to monitor patients and tend the axlotl tanks.

Recently, Sheeana had begun growing another ghola as part of her program, using cells from the Tleilaxu Master's nullentropy tube. Now that Stilgar and Liet-Kynes were gone, she had felt justified in taking that step. Clinging to security, she refused to identify the child gestat-ing in the axlotl tank.

The Bene Gesserits still claimed to need the gholas, though they could not clearly explain why. Their success in restoring the memories of previous lives in Yueh, Stilgar, and Liet-Kynes had not led to similar accomplishments with the other gholas yet.

Some of the witches, especially Proctor Superior Garimi, continued to voice grave reservations about bringing back Jessica and Leto II, because of their past crimes. So they had tried to awaken Thufir Hawat next.

Yueh did not know what the witches had done in attempting to break down Hawat's walls, but it had backfired on them. Instead of awakening, Hawat had fallen into convulsions.

The old Rabbi had been present and rushed to attend the seventeen-year-old ghola, pushing the Sisters away and scolding them for the foolish risks they had taken.

But Yueh, like Scytale, already had his old knowledge. He was no longer a child, no longer waiting to become something. One day, he mustered his courage and implored Sheeana to put him to work.

"You witches forced me to remember my old life. I begged you not to, but you insisted on awakening me. Along with my memories and my guilt, came useful skills. Let me act as a Suk doctor again."

At first he wasn't sure the Bene Gesserits would agree, especially considering the constant threat from the unknown saboteur - but when Garimi automatically objected, Sheeana decided to support him. He was granted permission to make rounds in the medical center, so long as he remained under surveillance.

At the entrance to the main axlotl chamber, two security women scanned Yueh carefully, then waved him through. Neither of them remarked on the new diamond-shaped stain on his forehead. He wondered if anyone still remembered what that mark had once symbolized.

In preoccupied silence, Yueh went about his inspections of the healthy axlotl tanks.

Several produced melange for the ship's stockpiles, but one was obviously pregnant.

This unnamed ghola baby would gestate under much tighter security. Yueh was convinced that the child would not be another attempt at Gurney Halleck, Xavier Harkonnen, or Serena Butler. Nor would it be a duplicate of Liet-Kynes or Stilgar. No, Sheeana would experiment with someone else - someone she believed could dramatically help the Ithaca.

Knowing Sheeana's impetuous nature, Yueh feared who the baby might be. The Sisters were not immune to making poor choices (as they had proved by bringing him back!). He couldn't believe any of the women had imagined he might be a savior or a hero, yet he had been one of their first experiments. Judging from this, what if the witches were curious to study nefarious personalities from the dark pages of history? Emperor Shaddam? Count Fenring? Beast Rabban? Even the despised Baron Harkonnen himself?

Yueh could imagine Sheeana's excuses already. She would no doubt insist that even the worst personalities had the potential to provide invaluable information.

What snakes will they set loose among us? he wondered.

In the main medical center away from the tanks, he found the old Rabbi grumbling as he assembled a portable medical kit. Since refusing to remain behind on Qelso with his people, he lingered for hours at a time over the tank that he called Rebecca.

Though he despised what had been done to her, he seemed relieved that she hadn't been the one implanted with the new ghola.

Reluctant to have the Rabbi hover too long near the axlotl tanks, the Sisters gave him duties to keep him busy. "I am going to run Scytale through a battery of tests," the old man huffed to Yueh, starting to retreat from the medical center. "Sheeana wants him checked out - again."

"I can do that for you, Rabbi. My duties here are light."

"No. Sticking needles into the Tleilaxu is one of my few pleasures these days." His gaze fixed on Yueh's new diamond mark, but he did not comment on it. "Walk with me."

The Rabbi took Yueh's arm in a tight grip and led him into the corridors, away from the hovering Bene Gesserits. When they were far enough away for him to feel safe, the old man leaned closer, speaking in a conspiratorial tone. "I am certain Scytale is the saboteur, though I have not found evidence yet. First the old one, and now his ghola replacement. They are all the same. With his memories restored, the young Scytale continues his insidious work to destroy our ship. Who can trust a Tleilaxu?"

Who can trust anyone? Yueh thought. "Why would he want to harm the ship?"

"We know he has some dirty scheme. Ask yourself why he would store Face Dancer cells in his nullentropy tube, along with all the others - yours included. Why would he need them? Isn't that suspicious enough for you?"

"Those cells were confiscated and secured by Sheeana. No one has had access to them."

"Can you be sure of that? Maybe he wants to kill us all so he can restore an army of Face Dancers for himself." The Rabbi shook his head. Behind the spectacles, his reddened eyes were angry. "And that isn't all. The witches have their own schemes.

Why do you suppose they won't reveal the identity of the new ghola baby? Does even Duncan Idaho know who is growing in that tankl" He craned his neck, glanced over his shoulder back toward the medical center, watching out for surveillance imagers. "But you can find out."

Yueh was perplexed, and curious, but he didn't tell the Rabbi that he had been having some of the same doubts. "How? They won't tell me either."

"But they don't watch you like they watch me! The witches are afraid I'm going to do something to hinder their program, but now that you have your memories, you're their trusted little ghola." The Rabbi slipped him a small sealed polymer disk, with a dab of filmy substance in the center. "You have access to the scanners. These are cell samples from the pregnant tank in there. Nobody saw me obtain them, but I dare not run the analysis myself."

Yueh surreptitiously pocketed the disk. "Do I really want to know?"

"Can you afford not to? I leave it to you." The Rabbi slipped away, muttering. Carrying his portable medical kit, he trudged off to the Tleilaxu's cabin.

The sample weighed heavily in Yueh's pocket. Why would the Sisters keep the new ghola's identity secret? What were they up to?

It took several hours for him to find an opportunity to slip into one of the no-ship's small lab chambers. As a Suk doctor, he had permission to use the facilities. Even so, he worked as swiftly as possible, running the small sample from the axlotl tank through a DNA catalog. He compared the cells from the growing ghola with the identifications that had been run years ago, when the Sisters first assessed the material in Scytale's nullentropy capsule.

Yueh found a match fairly quickly, and when he learned the answer, he physically recoiled.

"Impossible! They would not dare!" But in his heart, as he remembered the torment Sheeana had used to awaken his memories, he didn't doubt the witches would do anything.

Now he understood why Sheeana refused to reveal the identity of the ghola.

Even so, the choice itself made no sense. The Sisters had numerous other options.

Better ones. Why not try again to bring back Gurney Halleck? Or Ghanima, as a companion for poor Leto II? For what purpose could they possibly need - he shuddered - Piter deVries?

Because Bene Gesserits liked to play with dangerous toys, resurrecting people to serve as chess pieces in their great game. He knew the sort of questions they would pursue, just to satisfy their infernal curiosity. Was the genetic makeup of Piter de Vries corrupt, or was he evil because he had been Twisted by the Tleilaxu? Who better to think like an Enemy than a Harkonnen? Was there any evidence to suggest that a new Piter de Vries would turn out evil, as before, if he were not exposed to the corruptive influence of the Baron?

He could picture Sheeana giving him a condescending frown. "We need another Mentat.

You, of all people, Wellington Yueh, should not hold the past crimes of a ghola's old life against him."

He still did not believe it. He squeezed his eyes shut, and even the fake diamond tattoo on his forehead seemed to burn. He remembered being forced to watch Wanna endure her endless torture at the hands of the vile Mentat. And the man thrusting a knife deep into his back, grinding the blade.

Piter deVries!

He still felt the sharp steel ripping into his organs, a mortal wound, one of the very last memories of his first life. Piter's laugh reverberated, along with the screams of Wanna in the agony chamber ... and Yueh unable to help her.

Piter deVries?

Yueh reeled, barely able to absorb the information. He could not allow a monster like that to be reborn.

* * *

This was just an innocent baby at the moment. Even if it was de Vries, this ghola child had committed none of the crimes of the original.

But he will! He is twisted, evil, malicious. The Sisters would raise him and insist on triggering his memories. Then he would be back!

Yet Yueh was trapped by his own previous logic. If the Piter ghola - in fact, all the gholas -

were unable to escape the chains of fate, wouldn't it be the same for Yueh? Was Yueh therefore destined to betray them all? Would he be doomed to make another terrible mistake - or must he sacrifice everything to prevent one? He had thought about consulting Jessica, but he decided against it. This was his burden, his decision.

Using the Rabbi's sample, he had run the genetic scan privately and seen the result.

He had to act alone. Though he was himself a Suk doctor, trained and conditioned to save lives, sometimes the death of one monster was required to save many innocents.

Piter deVries!

Indirectly he had caused de Vries's death the first time around, by giving the poison-gas tooth to Duke Leto, who bit down on it in the Mentat's presence. Yueh had failed in so many ways, caused so much pain and disappointment. Even Wanna would have hated what he'd done to himself, and to the Atreides.

Now, though - a second life, a second chance. Wellington Yueh could make things right.

Each of the resurrected ghola children supposedly had a great purpose. He was convinced that this was his.

The handmade black diamond staining his brow added to the burden as Yueh wrestled with his decision. In his restored memories, he saw with clarity when he had become an actual Suk doctor, when he passed through an entire Inner School regimen of Imperial Conditioning and took the formal oath. " 'A Suk shall not take human life.'"

And yet, Yueh's oath had been subverted, thanks to the Harkonnens. Thanks to Piter deVries.

What irony that the breaking of his Suk pledge now allowed him to destroy the very man who had broken that conditioning! He had the freedom to kill.

Yueh already had the instrument of death in the pocket of his smock. His plans were in place, and he would take no chances. Since surveillance imagers still monitored the med center and its axlotl tanks, Yueh could not do this in secret, as the real saboteur had. Once he acted, everyone aboard the Ithaca would know who had killed the de Vries ghola. And he would face the consequences.

Perspiration formed on his brow as he crossed the room. With the sharp-eyed Bene Gesserit guard watching him, he could not delay, or the damned witches might detect his uneasiness, his nervous movements. Bringing out his device, Yueh turned a dial as if to recalibrate it, then inserted its probe into the pregnant tank, as he would do in taking a biological sample. Thus he easily administered a lethal dosage of fast-acting poison. So far, no one suspected a thing.

There. Done.

Fittingly, de Vries had been an expert in cleverly concocted poisons. And no antidote was available for this toxin; Yueh had seen to that. In a matter of hours, the unborn de Vries would shrivel up and die. Along with the tank, unfortunately. But that could not be avoided. A necessary sacrifice.

Leaving the chamber, he smiled grimly and quickened his pace. By tomorrow, there would be no hiding. Thufir Hawat and Bashar Teg would review surveillance holos and interview the guards. They would know who had done it. Unlike the real saboteur, he could not delete the images. He would be caught.

Despite this knowledge, Yueh was content with himself for the first time since his reawakening. At last, he savored the elusive taste of redemption.

***

- CHOAM directive

Now that he possessed the sample of ultraspice, Khrone knew exactly what lived in the fertile seas of Buzzell. The Navigators certainly had an unexpected scheme there, releasing a new breed of mélange-producing worms. He needed to go there and see for himself. The leader of the Face Dancer myriad cared little for the loss of soostone revenue, but in his guise as a CHOAM functionary, he had to feign extreme displeasure.

"Monsters?" Standing on the main dock, he gave the woman Corysta a withering glare.

"Sea serpents? Can you think of no better excuses for your incompetence?"

Khrone scowled at the sea and gathered his dark business robes about his shoulders.

Out there in the water, wary Phibians swam, diving to harvest the gems from beds of cholisters, many of which had already been devoured by the hungry and growing seaworms.

Armored boats patrolled the coves, though they would surely prove insignificant if one of the large creatures should decide to attack.

Reverend Mother Corysta held herself erect, surprisingly unin-timidated by the faux official.

"It's no excuse, sir. No one knows where the worms came from or why they have appeared at this time. But they're real.

Guild hunting ships dragged in a carcass, if you care to see it."

"Nonsense. Such a story obviously benefits the New Sisterhood." Ignoring her protestations, he motioned for Corysta to accompany him along a rocky shoreline path, his shoes crunching on the loose stones. Stepping in a puddle, he frowned down at his feet and kept walking. "CHOAM suspects that you're creating a false shortage in order to drive up prices.

You have financial obligations. For years now, the Sisterhood has been commissioning extremely expensive ships, weapons, and military supplies.

Your losses are tremendous."

"They're humanity's losses, sir." Corysta's voice was sharp.

"And now Chapterhouse itself, brought to its knees by a plague. It appears that the Sisterhood can no longer meet its financial obligations. Thus, CHOAM no longer considers you a good credit risk."

Corysta turned into the brisk sea wind. "These are matters you should take up with the Mother Commander."

"I should, but since she is on a quarantined planet, I can't very well call on her, can I? Your Sisterhood is falling apart as a result of external attack and internal strife."

Women stood on plastone ramps at the water's edge to receive a tired-looking group of Phibians who carried a net filled with small, misshapen soostones.

Khrone could tell at a glance the gems were of poor quality, but at least it was part of a shipment he could seize as overdue payment. "Are your Phibians afraid of sea monsters?

Can they not go to richer beds of shellfish?"

"They harvest what they can, sir. There are no richer beds. The monsters have eaten many of the cholisters. Our underwater crops are ravaged. And, yes, the Phibians are understandably frightened. Many of them have been slaughtered." Corysta stared at him coldly, and Khrone appreciated the steel in her expression; he could respect it. "We have holo-footage of that, too, if you doubt me."

"It doesn't matter if I believe your story. I only want to know what the Sisterhood intends to do about it." Khrone knew the women could do nothing. Eventually the seaworms would bring down the soostone economy of Buzzell, thus removing another one of the Mother Commander's bargaining chips when she desperately needed to buy allegiances and secure equipment.

Kept in the dark, the exiled Sisters did not yet understand the true potential of those worms.

The primary chemical attributes of the new melange stolen from Buzzell would be a thousand times more effective on human nerve receptors. Oh, it would work very nicely indeed!

He wondered if the Spacing Guild was even aware of Edrik's destroyed Heighliner yet.

It was possible that they weren't. So many of their Navigators had vanished anyway, what was one more? If necessary, by planting a few hints here and there, Khrone could easily blame the loss on an attack by the thinking-machine battle fleet. If nothing else, Omnius made a fine scapegoat.

The Face Dancer myriad had set their hooks everywhere. The Ixi-ans were building supposed weapons and draining the Chapterhouse coffers of spice; now the Sisterhood's soostone wealth was also disappearing. The Guild relied entirely on computerized navigation devices for their new ships, and the Navigators had no source of mélange.

All enemies of the Face Dancers would fall. He would see to that. The Lost Tleilaxu and the original Masters had already been erased. The Ixians were in Khrone's pocket.

Next would come the New Sisterhood, the Guild, and all of humanity. Finally, when he and his minions defeated the thinking machines, nothing would remain but the Face Dancers.

And that would be enough.

Pleased with himself, Khrone marched up to the dock and yanked the net of soostones from the women trying to sort them. "Your production has dropped off drastically, and too many CHOAM merchants have gone away empty-handed."

Corysta hovered close behind him. "I hope to hire mercenary hunters to track down the seaworms. It is possible that we may find something of interest - maybe something more valuable than soostones."

So, this woman already had her suspicions about the ultraspice! "I doubt it," he said. Khrone took the net of rough soostones and marched back to the landing pad.

Considering the vast game board, he decided it was finally time to head toward the heart of the thinking-machine empire. He would deliver the ultraspice to Omnius and let the ever-mind continue with his mad dream of creating and controlling his own Kwisatz Haderach.

It wouldn't help him in the end.

***

- DR. WELLINGTON YUEH, encrypted entry

The axlotl chamber smelled of fetid death. Duncan could not tear his gaze away from the still, cold flesh of the tank and the clear signs of necrosis. Rage and helplessness chewed at his gut. And who would the child have been? Sheeana hadn't even told him.

Those damned Bene Gesserits and their secrets!

"Touch nothing," Teg warned. "Get me all security images right away. We will find the saboteur this time." One of the Sisters hurried to obtain the recordings.

Meanwhile, young Thufir cordoned off an area around the poison-ravaged tank and its unborn ghola. Mostly recovered from the memory-trigger attempt that had gone so dramatically awry, he now sternly followed the methods the Bashar had taught him. The corrosive poison had completely destroyed the growing fetus and then eaten through the wall of the womb that kept the thing alive. Somehow the tank had fallen to the floor, and yellow puddles oozed around the dead flesh.

Sheeana turned to one of her Sisters. "Bring Jessica here. Immediately."

Duncan gave her a sharp look. "Why Jessica? Is she a suspect?"

"No, but she will be hurt by this. Maybe I shouldn't even tell her...."

Presently, Teg received a surveillance holotube from one of the Bene Gesserits. "I will scan every second. There must be some piece of evidence pointing to the traitor among us."

"There is no need. I killed the ghola." A young man's voice. All of them spun to look at a grim-faced Dr. Wellington Yueh. "I had to." Thufir moved swiftly to seize him by the arm, and Yueh did not resist. He stood firm, ready to face the questions that would be thrown at him.

"You can punish me, but I couldn't allow you to spawn another Twisted Mentat. Piter de Vries would only have caused bloodshed and pain."

While Duncan immediately grasped the implications of Yueh's confession, Sheeana sounded perplexed. "Piter? What are you talking about?"

Yueh didn't struggle in Thufir's firm grip. "I witnessed his evil firsthand, and I couldn't allow you to bring him back. Ever."

Just then, a breathless young Jessica hurried in with the three-year-old Alia in tow. Alia had intent, eager eyes, full of maturity and understanding that she should not have had. She carried a chubby doll that looked remarkably like a juvenile version of the fat Baron Harkonnen. One of its arms had almost torn loose. Leto II followed his grandmother, looking curious and worried.