An excited spotter in Red Wall Sietch summoned Liet-Kynes to the hidden observation post high on the rugged ridge. He ascended through perilous shafts and hidden cracks, finding hand- and toeholds until he reached an exposed ledge. The air smelled like burned gunpowder.

“I see a man approaching, even in the heat of day.” The spotter was a grinning boy with a weak chin and an eager smile. “Someone alone.”

Intrigued, Liet followed the wiry, wide-eyed youth into the dry heat. Thermal currents shimmered from the red-and-black lava buttresses that thrust like a citadel from the dunes.

“I have summoned Stilgar as well.” The spotter was full of anticipation.

“Good. Stil has the best eyes among us.” Instinctively, Liet inserted plugs into his nostrils; his stillsuit was new, replacing the one the Emperor’s guards had clumsily ruined.

Liet shaded his eyes from the glare of the lemon-yellow sky and stared across the undulating ocean of sand. “I am surprised Shai-Hulud hasn’t taken him.” He discerned a tiny speck, a moving figure that appeared no larger than an insect. “ ’The lone man in the desert is a dead man.’ ”

“That one may be a fool, Liet, but he is not dead yet.”

Turning at the voice, he saw Stilgar approaching from behind. The hawkish man knew how to move with silence and grace.

“Should we go help him? Or kill him?” The spotter’s piping voice was emotionless, trying to impress these two great men. “We can take his water for the tribe.”

Stilgar extended a sinewy hand, and the boy passed him an oft-repaired set of binoculars that had once belonged to Planetologist Pardot Kynes. Liet suspected the desert wanderer might be a lost member of a Harkonnen troop, an exiled villager, or some idiotic prospector.

After focusing the delicate oil lenses, Stilgar reacted with surprise. “He moves like a Fremen. Walks without pattern, his steps irregular.” He increased the magnification, then lowered the binoculars. “It is Turok, and he is either injured or exhausted.”

Liet reacted immediately. “Stilgar, summon a rescue party. Go save him if you can. I would rather have his story than his water.”

When they brought Turok in, his stillsuit was torn, his shoulder and right arm wounded, though the blood had coagulated. He had lost his left temag boot, causing the stillsuit pumps to cease functioning. Though he’d just been given water, Turok had reached the limit of human endurance. He lay back on a cool stone table, but his skin had a dusty cast, as if he had exhausted all the spare moisture that a Fremen carried.

“You walked during the day, Turok,” Liet said. “Why would you do something so foolish?”

“No choice.” Turok took another sip of the water that Stilgar offered. A little of it ran down his dusty chin, but he caught it on a forefinger and licked it. Every drop was precious. “My stillsuit no longer functioned. I knew I was close to Red Wall Sietch, but no one would have seen me after dark. I had to hope that you would come to investigate.”

“You will live to fight Harkonnens again,” Stilgar said.

“I did not survive merely to fight.” Turok spoke with deathly fatigue. His lips were cracked and bleeding, but he refused more water. He described what had happened on the spice harvester, how Harkonnen troops had lifted off the cargo and then abandoned the crew and equipment to the sandworm.

“The spice they took will be listed as lost,” Liet said, shaking his head. “Shaddam is so wrapped up with silly concerns for protocol and the garments of power that it is easy to trick him. I have seen it with my own eyes.”

“For every stockpile we capture, like the one at Hadith Sietch, the Baron creates another.” Stilgar looked from Turok to Liet, not liking the implication of what he was thinking. “Should we report this to Count Fenring, or send a message to the Emperor?”

“I will have nothing further to do with Kaitain, Stil.” Liet didn’t even write new reports; he would simply keep sending old documents that his father had written decades before. Shaddam would never notice. “This is a Fremen problem. We do not seek the help of off-worlders.”

“I was hoping you would say that,” Stilgar said, his eyes brightening like those of a carrion bird.

Turok accepted more water now. Faroula appeared and quietly brought the haggard man a bowl of thick, soothing herbal ointment for his sunburns. After wiping exposed areas with a damp cloth, she began to rub the cream into his skin. Liet looked at his wife fondly, watching her ministrations. Faroula was the best healer in the sietch.

She returned his glance, a confident promise of secrets to be shared later. He had fought hard to win the heart of his beautiful wife. Despite the passion they felt for one another, Fremen tradition forced a man and a woman to keep any expression of it behind the hangings of cave chambers. In public, they led almost separate lives.

“The Harkonnens are growing more aggressive— so we must unite in our resistance.” Liet’s mind returned to business matters. “We Fremen are a great people, scattered on the winds. Summon the sandriders to the speaking cave. I will dispatch them to other sietches to announce a grand convocation. All Naibs, elders, and fighting men will attend. In the name of my father, Umma Kynes, this will be a momentous gathering of Fremen.”

He bent the fingers of one hand like a claw, and raised it high. “The Harkonnens have no idea of our combined strength. Like a desert hawk, we will dig our talons into the Baron’s backside.”

Inside the terminal building of the Carthag Spaceport, the Baron scowled and paced while preparations continued for his departure to Giedi Prime. He loathed the dry, dusty climate of Arrakis.

Pausing to catch his breath, he held on to a railing, his feet barely skimming the floor. Though by no means nimble, his suspensor belt helped the obese man maintain the impression that he was capable of doing anything he wished.

Spotlights marked the fused-sand landing field. Illumination splashed across fuel storage silos, skeletal cranes, suspensor barges, and blocky hangars constructed from prefab components— all modeled after the architecture of Harko City.

He was in a particularly foul mood this evening. His trip home had been delayed for days while he formulated a rebuttal to a notification from the Spacing Guild and CHOAM, who wanted to audit his spice-handling procedures. Again. He had cooperated fully with the usual audit only five months ago, and another should not have been due for at least another nineteen months. From Giedi Prime, his lawtechs had filed a detailed letter of inquiry into the matter, which would undoubtedly delay the Guild and CHOAM, but he had a bad feeling about this. It was all tied in with the Emperor’s crackdown on spice stockpiling. Things were changing, and not for the better.

As the holder of the Arrakis fief, House Harkonnen was the only Landsraad member legally entitled to any stockpiles at all, but those stocks could only be large enough to fill expected short-term demand from customers placing orders for melange, and each hoard had to be documented in periodic reports to the Emperor. It was all quite involved, and for every shipment that the Baron sent out by Heighliner, a tax was owed to House Corrino.

The customers, for their part, were only permitted to order amounts to fulfill their own short-term needs— for food additives, spice fibers, medicinal applications, and the like. For centuries, there had been no means of enforcing the prohibition against ordering too much, which led, inevitably, to hoarding. And everyone had looked the other way. Until now.

“Piter! How much longer?”

The furtive Mentat had been watching crews haul crates and supplies onto the Harkonnen frigate under the yellow-white glow. He’d appeared to be daydreaming, but the Baron knew de Vries was keeping a silent inventory, watching every object loaded aboard, ticking it off against a list inside his brain.

“I estimate another standard hour, my Baron. We have much to bring back to Giedi Prime, but these local workers are slow. If you like, I could have one tortured to increase the speed of the others.”

The Baron considered the suggestion, but shook his head. “We have time before the Heighliner arrives. I will wait in the frigate lounge. The sooner I get my feet off this damned planet, the better I’ll feel.”

“Yes, my Baron. Shall I prepare refreshments? It helps for you to rest.”

“I don’t need rest,” the Baron answered, more harshly than he’d intended. He disliked any implication of weakness or inability to perform his duties.

The Bene Gesserit had afflicted him with this disgusting, debilitating disease. He’d once been blessed with a perfect body, but that horse-faced Mohiam had turned it into an offensive flesh-dumpling, though it retained the sexual drive and sharp mind he’d had in his youth.

The disease itself was a closely held secret. If Shaddam ever decided the Baron was a failing leader, unable to perform the necessary functions on Arrakis, House Harkonnen would be replaced by another noble family. Thus, the Baron actively fostered the impression that his corpulence resulted from gluttony and a hedonistic lifestyle— an impression that was not difficult for him to maintain.

In fact, he decided with a smile, upon returning to Harkonnen Keep he would announce an extravagant feast there. To keep up appearances, he would encourage his guests to overindulge as much as he did.

The Baron’s various physicians had suggested that he spend time in the dry desert climate, asserting that it was better for his health. But he hated Arrakis, despite the wealth he reaped from melange. He returned to Giedi Prime whenever possible, sometimes just to repair the damage his thickheaded nephew “Beast” Rabban had done while he was gone.

The workers continued their loading and the guards formed an escort cordon to the ship. Piter de Vries accompanied the Baron across the warm landing field and up the frigate ramp. On board, the Mentat prepared a tiny glass of sapho juice for himself and brought a decanter of expensive kirana brandy for his master. The Baron sat in a heavily cushioned couch, rebuilt to accommodate his bulk, and summoned the latest intelligence briefing brought by the frigate captain.

He scanned the report with a frown that deepened into an outright scowl. Until now, the Baron had heard nothing about the outrageous Atreides attack upon Beakkal— and the surprisingly supportive Landsraad reaction. The damnable nobles had actually sympathized with Leto, even applauding his brutal retaliation. And now the Emperor had devastated Zanovar.

Things were heating up.

“These are unsettled times, my Baron, with many aggressive actions. Remember Grumman and Ecaz.”

“This Duke Atreides”— the Baron raised his briefing packet, clutching it in pasty, ring-studded fingers— “has no respect for law and order. If I were ever to launch Harkonnen forces upon another family, Shaddam would send Sardaukar down my throat. Yet Leto gets away with murder.”

“Technically, the Duke violated no laws, my Baron.” De Vries paused to make detailed mental projections. “Leto is well liked among the other Houses, and he has their tacit support. Do not underestimate the Atreides popularity, which seems to grow every year. Many of the Houses look up to the Duke. They see him as a hero—”

The Baron gulped his brandy and gave a disbelieving snort. “For some unknown reason.” With a grunt, he leaned back on the couch, pleased to hear the rumble of engines starting at last. The frigate rose from the glassy ground and into the blackness of night.

“Think, my Baron.” De Vries rarely risked such a tone with him. “The death of Leto’s son may have been a short-term victory for us, but now it is becoming a victory for House Atreides as well. The tragedy has generated much sympathy for the Duke. The Landsraad members will grant him leniency, and he can get away with actions no one else would dare. Beakkal is a case in point.”

Irked by the success of his nemesis, the Baron blew air through his puffy lips. Outside the windows of the frigate, at the edge of orbit, he watched the atmosphere fade into starlit indigo. Exasperated, he turned back to de Vries. “But why do they like Leto so much, Piter? Why him, and not me? What exactly has an Atreides ever done for them?”

The Mentat furrowed his brow. “Popularity can be an important coin, if spent properly. Leto Atreides actively tries to woo the Landsraad. You, my Baron, choose to hammer your rivals into submission. You use acid instead of honey, not courting them as you could.”

“It has always been difficult for me.” He narrowed his spider-black eyes and swelled his chest with fresh determination. “But if Leto Atreides can do it, then by all the demons in the cosmos, I can do it as well!”

De Vries smiled. “Allow me to suggest that you consult an advisor, my Baron, perhaps even hire an etiquette instructor to reshape your actions and moods.”

“I don’t need a man to tell me how to hold my fork in a dainty fashion.”

De Vries cut him off before his annoyance could grow. “There are many skills, my Baron. Etiquette, like politics, is a complex weaving of fine threads. It is difficult for an untrained person to keep track of them all. You are the leader of a Great House. Therefore, you must perform better than any commoner.”

Baron Harkonnen remained silent as the frigate pilot guided them toward the giant Guild ship above. He finished his potent, smoky brandy. He didn’t like to admit it, but knew his Mentat had spoken truly. “And where would we find such an… etiquette advisor?”

“I suggest obtaining one from Chusuk, which is well-known for its courtliness and manners. They make balisets, write sonnets, and are considered highly refined and cultured.”

“Very well.” A glint of humor flickered across the Baron’s face. “And I’ll want Rabban to go through the same instruction.”

De Vries kept himself from smiling. “I am afraid your nephew may be beyond redemption.”

“Probably. I want him to try, anyway.”

“It shall be arranged, my Baron, the moment we reach Giedi Prime.”

The Mentat took a sip of his sapho juice while his master poured another snifter of kirana brandy and quaffed it.