Baron Vladimir Harkonnen was no stranger to despicable acts. Still, being coerced into this encounter disturbed him more than any vile situation he had ever been in. It threw him completely off-balance.

And throughout it all, why did this damned Reverend Mother have to be so calm, so smug?

Embarrassed, he sent away his guards and officials, purging all possible eavesdroppers from the brooding Harkonnen citadel. Where is Rabban when I need him? Off on a hunt! He sulked back to his private chambers, as ready as he would ever be. His stomach churned.

Nervous sweat glistened on his forehead as he stepped through the ornate arched doorway, then flicked on the privacy curtains. Perhaps if he extinguished the glowglobes and pretended he was doing something else. . . .

When he entered, the Baron was relieved to see that the witch had not taken off her clothes, had not reclined seductively on the mussed bedcoverings in anticipation of his return. Instead, she sat fully robed, a prim Bene Gesserit Sister, just waiting for him. But a maddeningly superior smile curved her lips.

The Baron wanted to slash that smile away with a sharp instrument. He took a deep breath, appalled that this witch could make him feel so helpless.

“The best I can offer you is a vial of my sperm,” he said, trying to be gruff and in control. “Impregnate yourself. That should be sufficient for your purposes.” He lifted his firm chin. “You Bene Gesserit will just have to accept that.”

“But it’s not acceptable, Baron,” the Reverend Mother said, sitting up straighter on the divan. “You know the strictures. We’re not Tleilaxu growing offspring in tanks. We Bene Gesserit must have birth through natural processes, with no artificial meddling, for reasons you’re incapable of understanding.”

“I’m capable of understanding plenty,” the Baron growled.

“Not this you aren’t.”

He hadn’t expected the gambit to work anyway. “You need Harkonnen blood— what about my nephew Glossu Rabban? Or better yet, his father, Abulurd. Go to Lankiveil and you could have as many children as you want through him. You won’t have to work so hard.”

“Unacceptable,” Mohiam said. She fixed him with a cold, narrow-lidded glare. Her face looked plain, pasty, and implacable. “I am not here to negotiate, Baron. I have my orders. I must return to Wallach IX carrying your child.”

“But . . . what if—”

The witch held up her hand. “I’ve made it perfectly clear what will happen if you refuse. Make your decision. We’ll have you either way.”

His private chamber had suddenly become an alien and threatening place to him. He squared his shoulders, flexed his biceps. Though a muscular man, lean of body, with fast reflexes, his only escape seemed to involve pummeling this woman into submission. But he also knew about Bene Gesserit fighting abilities, especially their arcane weirding ways . . . and felt a twinge of doubt as to whether he would be the victor in such a struggle.

She got up and glided across the room with silent steps, then sat rigidly on the edge of the Baron’s stained and unmade bed. “If it’s any consolation, I take no more pleasure in this act than you do.”

She looked at the Baron’s well-made body, his broad shoulders, his firm pectorals and flat abdomen. His face had a haughty look, clearly noble-born. In other circumstances Vladimir Harkonnen might even have been an acceptable lover, like the male trainers with whom the Bene Gesserit had matched Mohiam throughout her childbearing years.

She had already delivered eight daughters to the Bene Gesserit school, all of them raised apart from her on Wallach IX or on other training planets. Mohiam had never tried to follow their progress. That was not the Sisterhood’s way. Her daughter by Baron Harkonnen would be no different.

Like many well-trained Sisters, Mohiam had the ability to manipulate her most minute bodily functions. In order to become a Reverend Mother, she had been required to alter her own biochemistry by taking an awareness-spectrum poison. In transmuting the deadly drug within herself, she had passed inward through the long echoing bloodlines, enabling conversation with all of her female ancestors, the clamorous inner lives of Other Memory.

She could prepare her womb, ovulate at will, even choose the sex of her child from the moment the sperm and egg united. The Bene Gesserit wanted a daughter from her, a Harkonnen daughter, and Mohiam would deliver, as instructed.

With only limited details of the numerous breeding programs, Mohiam did not understand why the Bene Gesserit needed this particular combination of genes, why she had been selected to bear the child and why no other Harkonnen could produce a viable offspring for Bene Gesserit plans. She was just doing her duty. To her the Baron was a tool, a sperm donor who had to play his part.

Mohiam lifted her dark skirt and lay back on the bed, propping her head up to look at him. “Come, Baron, let us waste no more time. After all, it’s such a small thing.” She let her gaze drop down to his crotch.

As he flushed with rage, she continued in a soft voice, “I have the ability to increase your pleasure, or to deaden it. Either way, the results will be the same to us.” She smiled with her thin lips. “Just think of the hidden melange stockpiles you’ll be able to keep without the Emperor’s knowledge.” Her voice grew harder. “On the other hand, just try to imagine what old Elrood will do to House Harkonnen if he finds out you’ve been cheating him all along.”

Scowling, the Baron fumbled with his robe and lurched toward the bed. Mohiam closed her eyes and muttered a Bene Gesserit benediction, a prayer to calm herself and to focus her bodily actions and her inner metabolism.

The Baron was more nauseated than aroused. He couldn’t bear to look at Mohiam’s naked form. Fortunately she kept most of her clothes on, as did he. She worked with her fingers until he stiffened, and he kept his eyes closed during the entire mechanical act. Behind his eyes, he had no choice but to fantasize about earlier conquests, the pain, the power . . . anything to take his mind from the revolting and messy act of male-female intercourse.

It wasn’t lovemaking by any means, just a tired ritual between two bodies in order to exchange genetic material. For both of them it was barely even sex.

But Mohiam got what she wanted.

At his one-way private observation window, Piter de Vries moved silently, surreptitiously. As a Mentat he had learned how to glide like a shadow, how to see without being seen. An ancient law of physics claimed that the mere act of observation changed parameters. But any good Mentat knew how to observe broader issues while remaining invisible, unknown to the subjects of his scrutiny.

De Vries had often watched the Baron’s sexual escapades through this peephole. Sometimes the acts disgusted him, occasionally they fascinated . . . and rarer still, they gave the Mentat ideas of his own.

Now, he silently kept his eyes to the tiny observation holes, drinking in details as the Baron was forced to copulate with the Bene Gesserit witch. He watched his master with great amusement, enjoying the man’s utter discomfiture. He had never seen the Baron so nonplussed. Oh, how he wished he had found time to set up the recording apparatus so he could enjoy this again and again.

The moment she’d made her demands, de Vries had known the unavoidable outcome. The Baron had been a perfect pawn, utterly ensnared, with no choice in the matter.

But why?

Even with his great Mentat prowess, de Vries could not understand what the Sisterhood wanted with House Harkonnen or its offspring. Surely, the genetics weren’t that spectacular.

For now, though, Piter de Vries just enjoyed the show.