Unknown

The increasing variety and abundance of life itself vastly multiplies the number of niches available for life. The resulting system is a web of makers and users, eaters and eaten, collaborators and competitors.

For all his wiles and schemes, even with all the blood on his hands, Hasimir Fenring could be so wonderful to her. Lady Margot missed him. He was away, having gone with Baron Harkonnen deep into the desert to inspect spice harvester sites after receiving an angry message from Shaddam about a shortfall in melange production.

With cold adherence to his clear-cut goals, her husband had committed numerous atrocities in the Emperor’s name, and she suspected he’d had a hand in the mysterious death of Elrood IX. But her Bene Gesserit upbringing had taught her to value results and consequences. Hasimir Fenring knew how to get what he wanted, and Margot adored him for it.

She sighed each time she entered the lush wet-planet conservatory her husband had commissioned for her. Dressed in a comfortable yet stunning glitterslick housedress that changed color for each hour of the day, Margot pressed her hand against the palm-lock of the moisture-sealed door. As she stepped through the ornate mosaic arch into the verdant chamber, she breathed deeply of the rich air. Automatically, soothing music began to play, with baliset and piano.

The walls radiated yellow afternoon sunlight, where panes of filter glass converted the white sun of Arrakis to a color reminiscent of Kaitain days. Thick leaves waved in forced-air circulation like the banners of cheering citizens. Over the past four years, the plants in this chamber had flourished beyond her wildest expectations.

On a world where every drop of moisture was precious and beggars wandered the streets asking for water squeezings, where colorfully costumed water-sellers jingled their bells and charged exorbitant prices for just a sip, her private retreat was an extravagant waste. And worth every drop. As her husband always said, the Imperial Spice Minister could afford it.

Deep in her past, among the echoes of ancient lives still available to her, Margot remembered a sheltered wife in a strict Islamic household, a woman named Fatimah after the only daughter of Mohammed. Her husband had been wealthy enough to care for three wives, keeping them inside his house, giving each one a courtyard of her own. After her marriage ceremony, Fatimah had never gone outside the home again, nor had the other wives. Her entire world was contained within the lush courtyard, with its plants and flowers, and an open sky above. The trickling water in its central fountain provided a musical accompaniment to her stringed instruments. Sometimes butterflies or hummingbirds would drop down to feast on the nectar. . . .

Now, countless generations later, on a planet orbiting a sun farther away than that ancient woman could ever have imagined, Margot Fenring found herself in a similar place, sheltered and beautiful and full of plants.

A clockwork servok with long arms of pipe and hose misted the air, spraying the pruned trees, ferns, and flowers. The cool moistness chilled Margot’s skin, and she breathed it into her lungs. Such luxury, after so many long years! She lifted a wet fan leaf, thrust her fingers into the loamy soil at the plant’s base. No sign of the juice-sucking aphid mutants this plant had carried when it arrived from its tropical homeworld of Ginaz.

As she examined the roots, the voice of Reverend Mother Biana whispered to her from Other Memory. The long-dead Sister, who had been groundskeeper at the Mother School two centuries earlier, counseled Margot in the gentle ways of horticultural science. The music— Biana’s favorite song, a haunting troubadour melody from Jongleur— had sparked the inner ghost.

Even without Biana’s memory-assistance, Margot prided herself on her knowledge of plants. Specimens from all over the Imperium flourished in the conservatory; she thought of them as the children she could not have with her genetic eunuch husband. She enjoyed watching the plants grow and mature on such a hostile world.

Margot lost track of time, forgetting even to emerge for her meals. A Bene Gesserit Sister could fast for a week, if necessary. She was alone with her plants and her thoughts and the Other Memory of long-dead Sisters.

Contented, she sat on a bench by a fluted fountain at the center of the room. She placed a rootbound philarose on the bench beside her, and closed her eyes, resting, meditating. . . .

By the time she returned to herself, the sun had gone down in a blaze on the horizon, casting long shadows from rock escarpments to the west. Interior lights had turned on in the conservatory. Wonderfully rested, she carried the philarose to the potting bench and removed the plant from the container it had outgrown. She hummed the Jongleur tune to herself as she packed dirt around the roots in a new pot, completely at peace.

Turning around, Margot was startled to see a leathery-skinned man less than two meters away. He stared at her with deep blue eyes . . . something oddly familiar about him. He wore a jubba cloak, hood thrown back. A Fremen!

How had the man gotten in, despite all of the conservatory’s stringent security measures and alarms, despite the palm lock keyed to her hand alone? Even with her enhanced Bene Gesserit senses, she had not heard him approach.

The philarose pot fell from her hands with a crash, and she dropped smoothly into a Bene Gesserit fighting stance, her body loose and poised, her trained muscles ready to deliver toe-pointed kicks that could disembowel an opponent.

“We have heard of your weirding way of battle,” the man said without moving. “But you are trained never to employ it precipitously.”

Finally, she placed the man. She had seen him in Rutii, an outlying village during one of her tours. He was a self-styled priest of the desert, who administered blessings to the people. Margot recalled the priest’s discomfort when he’d noticed her watching him, how he had stopped his activities and had gone away. . . .

She heard a rustling in the shrubbery. A shrunken woman stepped into view, also Fremen, also familiar. It was the Shadout Mapes, the housekeeper, prematurely graying and wrinkled from the sun and wind of the desert. Mapes, too, had eschewed her customary household attire and instead wore a drab traveling cloak for a desert journey.

Mapes said, in a throaty voice, “Much water is wasted here, my Lady. You flaunt the richness of other worlds. This is not the Fremen way.”

“I am not Fremen,” Margot responded sharply, not yet ready to strike out with the paralyzing command of Bene Gesserit Voice. She had deadly weapons at her disposal that were unimagined by these primitives. “What do you want with me?”

“I am an Acolyte, one of the Sayyadina’s assistants,” he answered without taking a step closer.

Sayyadina, Margot thought. Her pulse quickened. That was a title she’d heard before, signifying a woman who seemed eerily like a Reverend Mother. Such a name was taught by the Missionaria Protectiva.

Suddenly all became clear. But she had spoken her request to the Fremen so long ago, she had given up hope. “You heard my communication, my whispered message.”

The priest lowered his head. “You say that you have information about the Lisan al-Gaib.” The appellation was pronounced with a deep resonance and respect.

“And so I do. I must speak with your Reverend Mother.” Calmly, stalling for time to settle her thoughts, Margot scooped up the plant she had dropped. Leaving the pot’s shards and dirt on the floor, she placed the philarose into a fresh container, hoping it would survive.

Margot brushed dirt from her hands. Though she allowed no flicker of emotion on her face, her heart pounded with anticipation. Perhaps, finally, she would have hard information to report to Mother Superior Harishka. Maybe she would learn what had happened to the missing Sisters who, a century ago, had vanished into the deserts of Arrakis.