In the court of public opinion, suspicion alone is often enough to convey guilt. Mentats do not think that way. We ask questions.

—The Mentat’s Handbook

Because so many people in the demolished shantytown of Arrakeen were unofficial immigrants—without citizenship papers, jobs, or families—the total number killed in the sandworm attack was impossible to determine.

Workers, former soldiers, pilgrims, and beggars threw themselves into the recovery effort, working tirelessly because Alia called upon them to, in Muad’Dib’s name. For his own part, Stilgar thought the Regent’s request had an impatient edge. Though it was an unkind thought, he believed she summoned so many workers not because she wanted to help suffering people, but because she wanted to clean up the mess as quickly as possible.

Meanwhile, the Qizarate issued a joyful pronouncement that all those devoured by the rogue worm had been transported immediately to Heaven and incorporated into Shai-Hulud. Stilgar was not surprised to hear it.

Despite the destruction, he was glad for the fact that even greater mayhem had not been done. The wild worm might well have torn a path all the way to the Citadel of Muad’Dib, but Stilgar had diverted it in time. Sooner or later, Alia would probably present him with a medal for what he had done, but he had no time for trinkets or celebrations. Instead, he was determined to find out who had caused the disaster. He had spent his life understanding the desert and the magnificent worms. He knew in his heart that it was no accident.

Stilgar gathered a handpicked team of sandwalkers and wormriders, desert men who could interpret the whispered secrets of the dunes, to read signs even though the winds tried to erase them. His grim assemblage went to the gap in the Shield Wall and combed over the scene.

Stilgar stood by the wrecked qanat, briefly removing his noseplugs so he could absorb the atmosphere around him, staring and sensing as he tried to pick up hints of what had occurred here. He stationed eight spotters out in the open desert to watch for other worms. He turned, looked around, felt the sting of grains against his exposed cheeks with the skirling gusts near the Shield Wall. Cueshma, he thought, the Fremen name for a twenty-klick wind, strong enough to stir the desert but not enough to be considered a storm.

Other than the wind, though, the desert was silent and secretive. He couldn’t understand what had drawn the beast here in the first place, why it had crossed the moisture line and attacked Arrakeen with such a single-minded purpose. What could have driven it to such erratic, unnatural behavior?

His men dug through the sand, pulling out chunks of the plazcrete canal wall. The worm had destroyed much of the evidence, but that did not stop the Fremen from searching. Several men poled the sand in widely separated locations, pushing probes down far enough to mea sure any detectable moisture.

Finally the lead man reported, “It’s dry, Stil.”

“If that qanat was full when the worm smashed it, there would still be water down deep. The bulk of the flow was diverted beforehand, the water drained. Sandtrout would have gotten the rest,” Stilgar said. No accident. Someone wanted the worm to have access into the basin.

Turning around, he passed his gaze along the impressive mountainous barrier that blocked all encroaching worms. During the Battle of Arrakeen years ago, the Padishah Emperor had stationed his forces inside the basin, assuming the area safe, not expecting Muad’Dib to use atomics to blast through the cliff, which enabled his Fedaykin to ride worms into the battle. It had been the turning point in modern history.

But those creatures had been deliberately guided through the gap by seasoned wormriders. How had a lone worm threaded the needle and entered the sheltered area? Even if the barrier qanat had dried, how had the sightless creature found such a relatively small opening?

Stilgar was not surprised when his men discovered the remains of a thumper. This suggested that several more might have been strung along like bread crumbs to lead the creature onward. The inexorable throbbing beat would have drawn the blind worm like a magnet, luring it through the passage.

“Treachery,” one of the Fedaykin murmured. “Shai-Hulud was summoned intentionally.”

Stilgar had suspected as much. But by whom?

One of the men held up a lump of twisted metal. “See this thumper’s unusual design. Looks like Ixian technology to me. Bronso of Ix!”

The Naib scowled. “A thumper is no proof of that.” With their clockwork mechanisms and syncopated tampers, the devices were quite simple. “No Ixian expertise is required to make one.”

Under the bright sun and the briskly blowing grains, Stilgar’s searchers kept sifting through the sands. Toward dusk they uncovered the fused circuitry of a shield generator, and another one farther along. Again some of the discoveries suggested Ixian technology, perhaps evidence against Bronso . . . though shield generators could be purchased anywhere.

Shields would drive a worm into a frenzy. Always. After thumpers attracted it to the remains of the qanat, the hidden shield generators would goad the creature into the Arrakeen basin. Someone had meant to create havoc here.

He knew why the men were so quick to conclude that Bronso was to blame. Alia had already announced her suspicions, and the Ixian’s guilt would be proven to her satisfaction, one way or another.