When word came that Gurney and Thufir had at last returned from Ix and were taking a shuttle down from the Heighliner in orbit, Rhombur insisted on meeting them at the spaceport in person. He was both anxious and uneasy to hear what they had found on his once-beautiful planet.

“Be prepared for whatever news they bring, Prince,” Duncan Idaho said. Immaculate in his green-and-black Atreides uniform, the young Swordmaster wore a determined expression on his round face. “They will tell us the truth.”

Rhombur’s expression did not flicker, but he turned his eyes toward Duncan. “I have not heard a detailed report from Ix in years, and I am eager for any news at all. It could not be worse than what I’ve already imagined.”

The Prince walked with exaggerated care, but kept his balance and accepted no assistance. Rather than choosing more traditional honeymoon activities, his new wife Tessia had worked with him unceasingly, helping Rhombur become proficient in his cyborg body. Like an overprotective father, Dr. Yueh worried about his patient, testing functions and nerve impulse transmissions until Rhombur finally ordered the Suk doctor out of his private apartments.

Now, moving with determination and buoyed by Tessia’s faith in him, Rhombur took no discouragement from the curious or pitying stares. He combated their instinctive avoidance of his freakish appearance with grins in response. His good-natured personality shamed others into accepting him.

Outside the Cala Municipal Spaceport, under skies thick with clouds, the two watched the fingernail scratch of the descending shuttle’s ionization trail. As a light rain began to fall, Rhombur and Duncan drew deep breaths of the salty air, pleased to feel the dampness on their skin and hair.

The Guild shuttle aligned itself with a marked landing grid and settled into Caladan’s embrace. People pushed forward to greet emerging passengers.

Dressed in the faded cloaks of down-on-their-luck merchants, Gurney Halleck and Thufir Hawat followed a line of disembarking visitors. They looked like a million others in the Imperium, but these two had defied all odds, infiltrating Ix right under the noses of the Tleilaxu. Recognizing them, Rhombur rushed forward. His hurried movements became jerky instead of smooth, but he did not care.

“Do you have information, Gurney?” Rhombur spoke in the coded Atreides battle language. “Thufir, what did you find?”

Gurney, who had experienced so much horror in the Harkonnen slave pits, looked deeply disturbed. Thufir walked on legs as stiff and leaden as Rhombur’s own. The weathered Mentat took a deep breath to marshal his thoughts, choosing his words carefully. “My Lord Prince, we have witnessed much. Oh, what these eyes have seen.… And as a Mentat, I can never forget.”

Leto Atreides called a private war counsel in one of the tower chambers. These apartments had been used by his mother Lady Helena as a personal sitting room before she’d been exiled to the Eastern Continent, but the chambers had remained unused for some time. Until now.

Servants dusted the corners and windowsills and built a roaring fire in the river-rock fireplace. Rhombur had little physical need to rest and relax, and stood waiting like a prominent piece of furniture.

Initially, Leto sat in one of his mother’s embroidered cushion chairs, where she used to curl up and read daily devotions from the Orange Catholic Bible. But he thrust the chair away, selecting instead a taller wooden one. These were not comfortable times.

Thufir Hawat presented his detailed summary of what they had seen and done. As the Mentat dictated the brutal facts, his companion frequently interjected emotional comments, hammering home his revulsion and disgust.

“Sadly, my Duke,” Hawat said, “we have overestimated the capabilities and accomplishments of C’tair Pilru and his supposed freedom fighters. We found little organized resistance. The Ixian people are broken. Sardaukar forces— two legions of them— and Tleilaxu spies are everywhere.”

Gurney added, “They sent Face Dancers to mimic Ixians and slip into rebel cells. The resistance fighters have been massacred several times.”

“We did observe widespread discontent, but no organization,” Hawat continued. “However, given the proper catalyst, I project that the Ixian population will rise up and overthrow the Tleilaxu.”

“Then we must provide that catalyst.” Rhombur took a heavy step forward. “Me.”

Duncan shifted in one of the chairs, unwilling to relax. “I see tactical difficulties. The invaders have become entrenched. They won’t be expecting a surprise attack after all this time, of course, but even with full Atreides military forces, it would be suicide. Especially against Sardaukar.”

Gurney noted, “Why does Shaddam have Imperial soldiers inside Ix? As far as I know, it’s not authorized by the Landsraad.”

Leto was not convinced. “The Emperor makes his own rules. Remember Zanovar.” His dark eyebrows drew together.

“We have the moral high ground, Leto,” Rhombur insisted, “just like we did on Beakkal.”

After having waited so long for revenge, the Prince was now filled with fire. Partly through Tessia’s efforts, but more of his own volition, a new core inside him had come alive. Rhombur paced the room with precise steps, mechanical legs humming, as if his mind was so restless that it had to burn off excess energy. “I was destined to become the Earl of House Vernius, like my father before me.”

He raised an arm, fist clenched, then lowered it. The servomotors and pulley musculature dramatically increased his strength. Rhombur had already demonstrated that he could crush rocks in the palm of his hand. He turned his scarred face toward the Duke, who still sat brooding in the hard chair.

“Leto, I’ve watched how your people view you with love, respect, and loyalty. Now, Tessia has helped me realize that for all these years I was trying to regain Ix for the wrong reasons. My heart wasn’t in it, because I did not see how much it mattered. I was indignant at losing what was mine. I was angry at the Tleilaxu for crimes against me and my family. But what about the Ixian people? Even the poor, duped suboids who followed promises of a better life?”

“Aye, those promises led them right over a cliff,” Gurney said. “ ’When the shepherd is a wolf, the flock becomes only so much meat.’ ”

Though Rhombur stood close to the orange flames in the fireplace, he couldn’t feel the heat. “I want to regain my world, not for myself, but because it’s what the people of Ix need. If I am to be Earl Vernius, then I serve them. Not the other way around.”

Hawat’s memory-haunted face softened into a smile. “You have learned an important lesson, Prince.”

“Yes, but putting it into practice will require considerable work,” Duncan said. “Unless we have some hidden advantage or secret weapon, our military forces will be in great danger. Remember what we’ll be up against.”

Leto considered Rhombur’s plight and acknowledged that the Vernius line would die with him, no matter what he achieved on Ix. And he felt a warm glow inside to think of Jessica’s pregnancy. He himself would have another child— a son, he hoped, though she would not say. He felt a pang, knowing she would soon depart for Kaitain….

The Duke had never imagined how his life would play out, how he would grow to care for Jessica after he’d first resented her presence so much. The Bene Gesserits had coerced him into keeping her here at Castle Caladan. Angered by their obvious manipulations, he had vowed never to take her as a lover… but he’d eventually played right into the Sisterhood’s plans. They had bribed him with information about Harkonnen schemes, a new kind of battleship—

Leto sat up with a start, and a slow smile spread across his lean face. “Wait!” They all fell silent as he organized his thoughts; the only sound in the room was the crackle of the fire. “Thufir, you were present when the Bene Gesserit witches made a bargain with me to keep Jessica here.”

Puzzled, Hawat tried to follow the Duke’s train of thought. Then the Mentat’s eyebrows raised. “They traded you information. There was an unseen ship, a vessel sporting new technology that rendered it optically invisible, even to scanners.”

Leto pounded his fist on the table and leaned forward. “The prototype of that Harkonnen ship crashed on Wallach IX. The Sisters have the vessel in their possession. Wouldn’t it be helpful if we could convince them to give us that technology…?”

Duncan lurched to his feet. “With undetectable ships, we could infiltrate an entire force into Ix before the Sardaukar could rally to the Tleilaxu defense.”

His face a mask of determination, Leto rose slowly and said, “They owe me, by the hells! Thufir, send a message to the Mother School asking for Bene Gesserit cooperation. More than any other House, we have the right to that information, since the technology was used against us.”

He looked over at Rhombur, a predatory smile cracking his stern countenance. “And then, my friend, we shall spare no effort to regain Ix.”