Beneath the Imperial Palace, in a network of perimeter water lanes and connected central pools, two women swam in black sealsuits. The younger of the pair stroked slowly, staying back to help the older whenever she faltered. Their impermeable suits, slick as oil and warm as a womb, offered flexibility while modestly covering the chest, midriff, and upper legs.

Despite the fact that some Bene Gesserit women wore common clothing, even exquisite gowns for special occasions such as Imperial balls and gala events, they were counseled to keep their bodies covered on an everyday basis. It helped to foster the mystique that kept the Sisters apart.

“I can’t . . . do what . . . I used to,” Reverend Mother Lobia wheezed, as Anirul helped her into the largest of seven central pools, a steaming water-oasis, scented with salts and herbs. Not so long ago, Truthsayer Lobia had been able to outswim Anirul quite easily, but now, at more than one hundred seventy years old, her health had been declining. Warm condensation dripped from the arched stone ceiling overhead, like a tropical rain.

“You’re doing fine, Reverend Mother.” Anirul held the ancient woman’s arm and helped her up a stone stairway.

“Don’t ever lie to a Truthsayer,” Lobia said with a wrinkled smile. Her yellowing eyes danced, but she was gasping for air. “Especially not the Emperor’s Truthsayer.”

“Surely the Emperor’s wife deserves a bit of leniency?”

The old woman chuckled.

Anirul helped her into a flowform chair, handed her a plush karthan-weave towel. Lobia lay back with the towel over her and pressed a button to activate the chair’s skin massage. She sighed as the electric fields pulsed her muscles and nerve endings.

“Preparations have been made for my replacement,” Lobia said in a sleepy voice, over the hum of the chair. “I’ve seen the names of the candidates. It will be good to go back to the Mother School, though I doubt I will ever see it again. On Kaitain, the climate is so perfect, but I long for the cold and the damp of Wallach IX. Odd, don’t you think?”

Anirul perched on the edge of her chair, seeing the age on the Truthsayer’s face, heard the ever-present murmur of crowded lives within herself. As the secret Kwisatz Mother, Anirul lived with a clear and strident presence of Other Memory inside her head. All the lives down the long path of her heritage spoke in her, telling her things that even most Bene Gesserit did not know. Lobia, with all her years, didn’t know as much about age as Anirul.

I am wise beyond my years. This was not hubris; it was more a sensation of the weight of history and events that she bore with her.

“What will the Emperor do without you around, Reverend Mother? He relies on you to learn who lies and who tells the truth. You’re no ordinary Truthsayer, by any historical measure.”

Beside her, soothed by the massage cycle, Lobia fell asleep.

As she relaxed, Anirul pondered layers of secrecy within the Sisterhood, the strict compartmentalization of information. The dozing Truthsayer beside her was one of the most powerful women in the Imperium, but even Lobia didn’t know the true nature of Anirul’s duties— knew very little, in fact, about the Kwisatz Haderach program.

On the other side of the underground pool chambers, Anirul watched her husband Shaddam emerge from a steam room, dripping and wrapped in a karthan towel. Before the door closed she saw his companions, two naked concubines from the royal harem. The women had all begun to look alike to her, even with her Bene Gesserit powers of observation.

Shaddam didn’t have much of a sexual appetite for Anirul, though she certainly knew techniques to please him. In accordance with the Mother Superior’s command, she had recently delivered a fourth daughter to him, Josifa. He had grown more furious with each girl-child, and now he turned to concubines and ignored her. Realizing that Shaddam lived under the ponderous weight of Elrood’s long reign, Anirul wondered if her husband dallied with so many concubines because he was trying to compete with his father’s ghost. Was he keeping score?

As the Emperor walked pompously from the steam room toward one of the cold pools, he turned away from his wife and dove in with a small splash. Surfacing, he stroked efficiently toward the water lanes. He liked to swim the Palace perimeter at least ten times a day.

She wished Shaddam paid as much attention to running the Imperium as he did to his own diversions. Occasionally Anirul tested him in subtle ways, and found that he knew far less than she did about the interfamilial alliances and manipulations around him. A grave gap in his knowledge. Shaddam had been increasing the ranks of his Sardaukar corps, though not enough, and without any overall plan. He liked to style himself as a soldier and even wore the uniform— but he didn’t have the edge, the military vision, or the talent for moving his toy soldiers around the universe in a productive manner.

Hearing a high-pitched squeal, Anirul saw a tiny black shape in the stone rafters above the waterways. With a fluttering of wings, a distrans bat swooped toward her with yet another message from Wallach IX. The tiny creature had been transported and set free on Kaitain, where it had homed in on her. Old Lobia didn’t stir, and Anirul knew Shaddam wouldn’t return for at least half an hour. She was alone.

Adjusting her vocal cords, the Kwisatz Mother matched the cry of the bat. It swooped down and landed on her damp, upturned palms. She stared at its ugly muzzle, the sharp teeth, the eyes like tiny black pearls. Focusing her attention, Anirul emitted another squeak, and the bat responded with a staccato chitter, a burst of compact signals encoded on the nervous system of the rodent messenger.

Hearing this, Anirul slowed it down in her mind; even Truthsayer Lobia didn’t know the code. The high-pitched tone became a series of clicks and bursts, which she translated and sorted.

It was a report from Mother Superior Harishka, updating her on the culmination of ninety generations of careful genetic planning. Sister Jessica, the secret daughter of Gaius Helen Mohiam and Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, remained unsuccessful in her sacred mission to bear an Atreides daughter. Was she refusing, delaying intentionally? Mohiam had said the young girl was spirited, loyal but occasionally stubborn.

Anirul had expected the next daughter in the genetic path to be conceived by now— the penultimate child who would be mother to their secret weapon. Yet for some time, Jessica had been sleeping with Duke Leto Atreides— but still she had not become pregnant. Intentional on her part? The attractive young woman had tested as fertile, and she was an adept seductress; Duke Leto Atreides had already sired one son.

What is taking her so long?

Not good news. If the long-awaited Harkonnen/Atreides daughter was not born soon, Mother Superior would summon Jessica back to Wallach IX and find out why.

Anirul considered letting the bat fly free, but decided not to risk it. With a clench of her fingers, she broke the creature’s fragile neck and disposed of the winged carcass in a matter-recycler behind the pool chamber.

Leaving Lobia to sleep in her massage chair, Anirul hurried back upstairs, into the Palace.