By what standards do we determine the sanity of a particular person? If that person is judged insane and brought down, then who benefits?

—PRINCESS IRULAN, The Life of Muad’Dib, Volume 3

On her last evening on Wallach IX, Jessica agreed to attend the Night Vigil. By tradition, she and the rest of the Sisters at the Mother School had spent the day in solitude, contemplating the life and travails of Raquella Berto-Anirul, who had founded their order from the rubble of humanity left by the Butlerian Jihad, thousands and thousands of years ago.

Jessica was eager to be away from the silent coercion of the Bene Gesserit. They had tried to bribe her with the position of Mother Superior—what Bene Gesserit didn’t aspire to such a goal? She had avoided giving an answer, which in itself made the Sisters greatly suspicious. And knowing what they had done to Tessia because of her refusal, Jessica felt herself in significant danger.

As night fell, still reluctant to engage in conversation, Jessica joined a long line of black-robed women bearing candles as they proceeded up the long slope of Campo de Raquella, a prominent hill near the Mother School complex. In the ascent along a rocky trail, the serpentine procession of candles looked like bright eyes in the starry darkness. Another set of flickering flames descended the hill along a parallel trail.

The Sisters climbed to the broad rounded top with its cairn of stones that remained in the sacred place where Raquella had stood so long ago, where her life had almost ended prematurely. A cool breeze whipped up as Jessica reached the summit. She looked out at the diamondlike lights of the extensive school complex and pondered the Sisterhood’s history, the millennia of power and choices they had made.

Unlike most of the indoctrinated acolytes, though, Jessica knew that some of those choices had been wrong. Very wrong.

Twenty women stood near her at the edge of a precipice on the sheer face of the hill, a marker on the drop-off where Raquella had once intended to jump. She had been despondent in those days, unable to keep the differing factions of her organization together, unable to see how to lead them on a common path into humanity’s future. She had hoped that her personal sacrifice would force them to work together.

But it was on this spot that the internal voices of Raquella’s female ancestry had first spoken to her. She’d consumed a great deal of the Rossak drug on that day, but the mysterious internal voices were no chemical-induced hallucination; the chain of voices emerging from her distant ancestors had urged her to live and to inspire others.

Holding her candle now, Jessica inhaled deeply of the night air to fully experience the moment. The ceremony was meant to be a time of reflection and contemplation, a chance to see the vast, unfurling tapestry of Bene Gesserit influence.

She faced outward at the top of the cliff as Raquella had done, standing closer to the edge than the other acolytes or Reverend Mothers with her. For the moment, she felt strongly connected to the core of the Sisterhood, the original purpose that had brought so many powerful women together, not like the corrupt self-interests that subsequently led the order so far astray.

A new Mother Superior could change all that. . . . This could be what Harishka wanted her to feel, an additional temptation of the glory of the Bene Gesserit and their shepherding of history. Despite the stirring she felt within her Bene Gesserit structured emotions, Jessica would not change her mind.

Finishing their meditations, one group of Sisters moved off to be replaced by others. Those with doubts or other concerns needed more time; others received their reaffirmation quickly, and surrendered their places.

A shadow moved up beside her, another black-robed Reverend Mother. Mohiam. “I am glad you stayed for the Vigil, Jessica. I’m sure you feel it.” The voice was brittle, like a dry wind on Arrakis. “Every Sister needs to participate in this, to clarify her thoughts and her heart.”

“It does make me think of the once-worthy goals of the Sisterhood . . . as opposed to its subsequent tactics . . . to what is going on now.”

Mohiam scowled in the low light of her candle. “Mother Superior Harishka has made you a generous offer. I know you’ve had your complaints and criticisms of our Sisterhood, but now you can fix them all, and we ask little in return.” The old woman stared across the dark-muddied landscape. “From this place, your view of the future reaches far . . . and your decision should be clear.”

“Clear? You are asking me to kill my son.” Jessica was beginning to lose patience. The edge of the cliff seemed symbolic of the choice they wanted her to make. Accept or leap. But was there another choice?

“A son you never should have had.”

Jessica turned away and walked down the rough trail, picking her way back down the hill. She did not slow as the old woman hurried to follow her. “We will bring down Muad’Dib, one way or another. We will use his own violence against him.” As the surprisingly agile woman caught up, her dark eyes sparkled in the candlelight. “You need to know these things if you are to become our new Mother Superior. You need to know that we will succeed. Cast your lot with us.”

At her side, the old woman lowered her voice, but her words carried an undertone of excitement. “Already Bene Gesserit operatives have made preparations to launch scattered revolts around the Imperium. Caladan will be the first spark. There’s nothing you can do about it. When that flame takes hold there, more than a hundred other planets will rise up simultaneously and declare their independence.

“The Emperor will have to withdraw his armies from other battles to deal with these unexpected problems and—if his fanatics perform as they always have—the sheer excesses of those crackdowns will ignite a cascade of other revolts, real ones that do not need our encouragement.

“Landsraad representatives will demand immediate reparations and unanimously push through legislation that imposes restraint. If Muad’Dib ignores or vetoes it, then he will lose the support of all the nobles who have sided with him. His government will not be able to contain them all. You see, Jessica? We will succeed with or without you.”

Suddenly, Mayor Horvu’s surprising and naïve idea of declaring Caladan’s independence made sense. He had been led to it by a manipulative Bene Gesserit operative. Jessica fired words at Mohiam like projectiles: “How dare you try to start a revolt on Caladan. My Caladan!”

“Your Sisterhood should matter more to you than a mere planet. We want you to take power away from a tyrant who has already killed more people than any other leader in recorded history. What is one mother’s love in comparison to that?” Mohiam sniffed, as if offended that she even had to convince Jessica. “whatever decision you make, we will still bring him down.”

Jessica tried to shake her away, but Mohiam kept up. The Sisters saw Paul only as a dangerous and destructive force . . . but she knew her son as kind, caring, intelligent, and clever, full of curiosity and love. That was the real Paul, not any adverse perceptions of him that had sprung up in the backwash of the Jihad!

The two women paused together, allowing other Sisters to pass in their progression downhill. Jessica stared into her burning candle, smelled the smoke, and struggled to control her emotions.

Grabbing her by the arm with surprising strength, Mohiam rasped, “You owe the Sisterhood. Your very life belongs to us! Remember that we saved you from drowning in your childhood. A woman died for you. How can you forget that? Remember.”

As if the Reverend Mother’s voice triggered a long-suppressed memory, Jessica suddenly recalled struggling for her life, going underwater in a fast-flowing river, the raging torrent all around her, in her mouth, in her lungs . . . and so cold. She couldn’t swim against the swift current, remembered being swept against a large rock and bumping her head. She couldn’t recall how she had fallen into the river, but she was just a child, no more than five or six years old.

Two brave Sisters had jumped into the raging river to rescue her. Jessica remembered being dragged to the shore and resuscitated. She’d learned later that one of the Sisters had lost her life in the attempt. Mohiam was right; she would have died that day if those women hadn’t helped her.

Oddly, however, Jessica could not recall the name of the Sister who had perished, and couldn’t remember the location of the river. Suddenly, as she slowed her thoughts and crystallized her memories of the event, she clearly remembered two Sisters dragging her onto the bank, both of them taking turns to clear water from her lungs, breathing into her mouth.

Two Sisters? How then, had one of them died in the rescue?

And why were other details faint? The Sisterhood left nothing to chance. Somehow her memory had been altered.

“Maybe I do owe the Bene Gesserit my life, or maybe you long ago planted that story in my mind to be used exactly in circumstances like this.”

From the flicker of shadowy expression on the old woman’s face, Jessica thought she had her confirmation. The near drowning had never occurred! What schemes did this old woman and her cohorts have in place, and what falsehoods did they hide?

Peering down her nose at Mohiam, Jessica said, “Thank you for helping me make up my mind. This night I have indeed achieved clarity. I owe the Sisterhood nothing!”

Mohiam grabbed Jessica’s sleeve. “You will listen. You will make the correct choice.” Jessica heard the commanding Voice, the importunate tone that she should not have been able to resist. Because she knew Mohiam so well, she identified the fringes of it, the dangerous undertones, and knew how to prepare herself mentally for the onslaught.

Another Reverend Mother stepped out of the tree-latticed shadows, a looming form whose wrinkled face became recognizable in the candlelight. Stokiah, a woman she had seen long ago on Ix . . . the woman Tessia had warned her about. Her heart stuttered with instinctive fear. I must not fear. . . .

Stokiah’s voice was like a rough bone saw. “You disappoint us further by refusing to rectify your mistakes, Jessica. How can you bear such guilt?” The words were drawn out like a long, strained note on a tortured violin.

Powerful waves of psychic energy struck Jessica, infusing her with an awful, dragging despair that sapped her strength and hammered her with shame. Several Sisters had stepped off the trail nearby and drew in around her and Mohiam, joining in the attack. Stokiah pressed closer.

Jessica felt intense pain in her head, the demanding sensation that she must do what Mother Superior Harishka wanted and turn against her own son.

But Tessia had prepared her, showing her survival skills to use against such an attack. Rhombur’s wife had been pummeled and damaged, but not defeated; she had found her own thread of strength, had resisted even as the Sisters tried to break her. And Jessica now shared that knowledge.

Rallying her strength and fury against what Stokiah, Mohiam, and these other women were trying to do to her—and to Paul!—Jessica steeled her mind and followed the mental channels she had prepared with Tessia’s help, shoring up her defenses and drawing upon her own strength.

She fought the guilt, using the strongest aspect of her core, the foundation of her life. She did it with her abiding love for Duke Leto Atreides and for their son—and drew strength from them. In memory, she saw Leto’s ruggedly handsome face, with his woodsmoke gray eyes looking at her so tenderly, so protectively—and she focused on that for a moment. With Leto’s memory beside her, with his nobility and strength saturating every cell in her body, she had an armor that the Sisters could not penetrate.

With great effort, Jessica shouted, “Save . . . your guilt . . . for yourselves!”

Making a concerted surge, she threw off the attack, and as she focused harder and harder, Jessica felt the psychic pummeling recede, and heard screams of pain as she inflicted echoes of guilt on her attackers. As moments passed and she gained the upper hand, she stalked off down the trail, leaving the Sisters reeling and moaning.