In her own apartment, Jessica lay beside Duke Leto on the wide bed, trying to soothe his nightmares. A number of scars on his chest and legs required additional newskin wraps to repair them completely. Much of Leto’s body had healed, though the tragedy festered in him, along with the terrible decision he had to make.

His friend or his son?

Jessica was sure that seeing a ghola of Victor each day would only worsen his pain, but she had been unable to say this to him. She searched for the right words, the right moment.

“Duncan is upset with me,” Leto said, pushing away from her to gaze into her clear green eyes. “So is Thufir, and probably Gurney, too. Everyone challenges my decisions.”

“They are your advisors, my Lord,” she said, treading cautiously. “They are required to counsel you.”

“In this matter, I’ve had to tell them to keep their opinions to themselves. This is my decision to make, Jessica— but what am I to do?” The Duke’s face darkened with anger, and his eyes misted over. “I have no other options, and only the Tleilaxu can do it. I . . . I miss my son too much.” His eyes begged for her understanding, her support. “How can I choose— how can I say no? The Tleilaxu will bring Victor back.”

“At the cost of Rhombur . . . and perhaps the price of your soul,” she said. “To sacrifice your friend for a false hope— I fear that will be your downfall. Please don’t do this, Leto.”

“Rhombur should have died in the crash.”

“Perhaps. But that was in God’s hands, not yours. He still lives. Despite everything, he still has the will to live.”

Leto shook his head. “Rhombur will never recover from his injuries. Never.”

“Dr. Yueh’s cyborg work will give him a chance.”

He glowered at her, suddenly defensive. “What if the robotic enhancements don’t work? What if Rhombur doesn’t want them? Maybe he’s better off dead.”

“If you give him to the Tleilaxu, they will never allow him a simple death.” She paused, and in a gentle tone suggested, “Perhaps you should go see him again. Look down at your friend and listen to what your heart tells you. Look at Tessia, look into her eyes. Then talk to Thufir and Duncan.”

“I don’t need to explain myself to them, or to anyone else. I am Duke Leto Atreides!”

“Yes, you are. And you are a man, too.” Jessica fought to control her emotions. She stroked his dark hair. “Leto, I know you’re only acting out of love, but sometimes love can guide a person in the wrong direction. Love can blind us to the truth. You’re on the wrong path, my Duke, and you know it in your heart.”

Although he turned away from her, she did not relent. “You must never love the dead more than the living.”

Thufir Hawat, concerned as always, accompanied the Duke to the infirmary, where Rhombur’s life-support pod bristled with fittings for intravenous tubes, catheters, and scanners. The whir and hum of machinery filled the room, stirring the smell of chemicals.

Hawat lowered his voice. “This can only lead to your ruin, my Duke. Accepting the Tleilaxu offer would be a betrayal, a dishonorable course of action.”

Leto folded his arms across his chest. “You have served House Atreides for three generations, Thufir Hawat, and you dare to question my honor?”

The Mentat pressed ahead. “The medical attendants are attempting to establish a means of communicating with Rhombur’s brain while he remains in the life-support pod. Soon he will be able to speak again, and tell you in his own words—”

“The decision is mine to make, Thufir.” Leto’s eyes seemed darker than usual, like thunderheads. “Will you do as I ask, or must I obtain a more obedient Mentat?”

“As you command, my Duke.” Hawat bowed. “However, it would be better to let Rhombur die now, rather than permit him to fall into the hands of the Tleilaxu.”

By prior arrangement, Yueh’s cyborg team was scheduled to arrive soon to begin the complex process of rebuilding Rhombur part by part, establishing proper machine-body interfaces. In an amalgamation of engineering and medical technology, the Suk doctor would weave machine into tissue, and tissue into machine. New and old, hard and soft, lost abilities restored. If Leto permitted it to proceed, Dr. Yueh and his team would be playing God.

Playing God.

The Bene Tleilax did that, too. Using other techniques, they could bring back what had been lost, what had died. They required only a few cells, carefully preserved. . . .

Taking a deep breath, Leto stepped to the life-support pod, where he looked down at the bandaged horror, the burned remnants of his longtime friend. He reached for the curved glass that showed the unrecognizable man inside. His fingers touched the slick surface, trembling with a strange mixture of fear and fascination. Tears streamed down his cheeks.

A cyborg. Would Rhombur hate Leto for that, or thank him? At least he would still be alive. In a manner of speaking.

Rhombur’s body was so twisted and mangled that it no longer seemed human. Fittings had been customized for the mass of flesh and bone; narrow fragments of raw tissue lay exposed around the edges of tubings and covers. One side of the face and brain had been crushed, and only a single bloodshot eye remained . . . unfocused. The eyebrow was blond, the only suggestion that this was truly Prince Vernius.

Never love the dead more than the living.

Leto placed a hand on the clearplaz barrier; he saw Rhombur’s finger stubs and a heat-fusion of metal and flesh where his fire-jewel ring had once been.

“I won’t let you down, friend,” Leto promised in a whisper. “You can count on me to do the right thing.”

In the barracks of the Atreides House Guard, two men sat at a rough wooden table, passing a bottle of pundi rice wine between them. Though initially strangers, Gurney Halleck and Duncan Idaho already conversed like lifelong friends. They had a great deal in common, especially an intense hatred of the Harkonnens . . . and an unbridled love for Duke Leto.

“I’m deeply concerned about him. This ghola matter . . .” Duncan shook his head. “I do not trust gholas.”

“Nor do I, lad.”

“That creature would be a pale reminder of the saddest time Leto has ever experienced, without memories of its former life.”

Gurney tilted his cup for a long, thoughtful swig of wine, then lifted his baliset from beside the table and began to strum. “And the cost— to sacrifice Rhombur! But Leto would not listen to me.”

“Leto is not the same person I knew before.”

Gurney stopped strumming. “And who would be . . . after all that pain?”

The Tleilaxu master Zaaf arrived on Caladan, accompanied by two bodyguards and hidden weapons. Haughty and self-confident, he strode up to Thufir Hawat in the main hall of Castle Caladan and looked up at the much taller Mentat.

“I have come for the body of the boy, so that we can prepare it for our axlotl tank.” Zaaf narrowed his eyes, utterly confident that Leto would bow to their demands. “I have also made arrangements to transport the life-support pod of Rhombur Vernius back to the medical and experimental facilities on Tleilax.”

Noting the sly upward curl of the mouth, Hawat knew that these fiends would commit atrocities upon Rhombur’s ragged body. They would experiment, grow clones from the living cells, then perhaps torture the clones as well. Eventually this terrible decision would come back to haunt Leto. Death for his friend would be preferable to that.

The Tleilaxu representative twisted the knife deeper. “My people can do much with the genetics of both the Atreides and Vernius families. We are looking forward to many . . . options.”

“I have advised the Duke against this course of action.” Hawat knew he must face Leto’s wrath, but old Paulus had often said, “Any man— even the Duke himself— must choose the welfare of House Atreides over his own.”

Hawat would offer his resignation from service, if necessary.

At that moment Leto walked into the room, looking more self-confident than the Mentat had seen him for many weeks. Gurney Halleck and Jessica followed him. With an inexplicable strength showing on his face, the Duke looked at Hawat, then bowed slightly in formal diplomatic greeting to the Tleilaxu Ambassador.

“Duke Atreides,” Zaaf said, “it is possible this business arrangement can bridge the gulf between your House and my people.”

Leto looked down his hawkish nose at the little man. “Unfortunately, that bridge will never be built.”

Hawat readied himself as the Duke stepped forward, close to Zaaf. Gurney Halleck also looked ready for murder. He exchanged uneasy glances with Hawat and Jessica. When the Tleilaxu bodyguards tensed, the warrior Mentat made ready for a quick, bloody battle in the large echoing chamber.

With a scowl, the Tleilaxu representative said, “Are you reneging on our agreement?”

“I made no agreement to break. I have decided that your price is too high, for Rhombur, for Victor, and for my own soul. Your trip here has been in vain.” The Duke’s voice remained strong and firm. “There will be no ghola made of my firstborn son, and you will not have my friend, Prince Vernius.”

Stunned, Thufir, Gurney, and Jessica looked on.

Leto’s face had an impenetrable hardness, and a new resolve. “I understand your continued, petty desire for revenge against me, even though the Trial by Forfeiture exonerated me of all charges. I have sworn that I did not attack your ships inside the Heighliner, and the word of an Atreides is worth more than all the laws in the Imperium. Your refusal to believe me shows your own foolishness.”

The Tleilaxu man appeared outraged, but Leto continued with a sharp, cold voice that stopped Zaaf before he could utter a sound. “I have learned the explanation behind the attack. I know who did it, and how. But since I have no tangible proof, informing you would accomplish nothing. The Bene Tleilax have no interest in the truth, anyway— only in the price you can extract from me. And I will not pay it.”

At a whistle from Hawat, the ever-alert Atreides House Guard rushed in and took control of the Tleilaxu bodyguards, while Gurney and Hawat stepped forward on either side of a spluttering Master Zaaf.

“I’m afraid we do not require the services of the Tleilaxu. Not today, not ever,” Leto said, and then turned, dismissing him rudely. “Go home.”

Hawat took great pleasure in escorting the indignant man out of the Castle.