Late at night while the auroras still burned bright, a sleepless Anirul entered the austere, chill quarters that had been used by the Emperor’s former Truthsayer, Lobia. Nearly two months had passed since the old woman had died, and her chambers remained lifeless and hushed, like a tomb.

Though Lobia must be in Other Memory now, having joined the multitudes within her mind, the Truthsayer’s ancient spirit had not yet surfaced. Anirul felt exhausted from the effort of trying to locate her, but something drove her on.

Anirul needed a friend and confidante, and she dared not speak to anyone else— certainly not Jessica, who knew nothing of her destiny. Anirul had her daughters, and though she was proud of Irulan’s intelligence and talents, she didn’t dare place such a burden of knowledge on the girl, either. Irulan wasn’t ready. No, the Kwisatz Haderach breeding program was too secret.

But Lobia— if only she could be located in Other Memory— would be suitable.

Where are you, old friend? Must I shout out and awaken all those others inside me? She feared taking that step, but perhaps the benefit would be worth the risk. Lobia, talk to me.

Empty boxes were stacked along one wall of the unheated apartment, but Anirul had avoided packing the dead Truthsayer’s meager possessions and sending them back to Wallach IX. Since Gaius Helen Mohiam had preferred a different set of rooms for herself, these quarters could remain empty for years in the sprawling Palace before anyone noticed them.

Anirul walked through the dim, austere rooms, breathing the chill air as if hoping to feel spirits stirring about. Then, taking a seat at a small rolltop desk, she activated her sensory-conceptual journal from the soostone ring on her hand. The diary hovered in the air, visible only to her. This seemed an appropriate, contemplative place for Anirul to organize her private thoughts.

She was sure Lobia would approve. “Wouldn’t you, old friend?” The sound of her own voice startled her, and Anirul fell silent again, surprised that she had begun talking to herself.

The virtual diary lay open in front of her, waiting for more words. She calmed herself, opened her mind, using Prana-Bindu techniques to stimulate her thoughts. A long, slow breath eased out of her nostrils, barely visible in the frigid air.

A chill coursed her spine. Shivering, Anirul adjusted her metabolism until she could no longer feel the cold. Four unadorned glowglobes near the ceiling dimmed and then brightened, as if a mysterious power surge had rippled through the air. She closed her eyes.

The room still smelled like Lobia, a comforting mustiness. The late Truthsayer’s psychic energy lingered as well.

Removing an innocuous-looking ink plume from its receptacle on the desk, Anirul held it with both hands, pressing it between her palms and concentrating. Lobia had used this instrument often when sending coded transmittals to the Mother School, where she had been an instructor for years. The old woman’s fingerprints were on the pen, along with discarded skin cells and bodily oils.

But the ink plume was a primitive method of writing and would not serve for this sensory-conceptual journal. In its place Anirul summoned a sensory-pen and raised it in front of the ethereal pages.

In the night stillness, in this place where Lobia had spent so much of her life, Anirul wanted to describe her friendship with the remarkable Truthsayer, documenting the wisdom she had learned from her. With brisk strokes she entered a coded date on the paperless page.

Then her hand hesitated. Her turbulent thoughts became murky, blocking the flow of words she wanted to write. She felt like a child in the Mother School, given a difficult assignment but unable to marshal her thoughts because the Proctor Superior was staring at her, scrutinizing her every move.

The glowglobes dimmed again, as if shadows were passing in front of them. Turning abruptly, Anirul saw no one at all.

Refocusing her tired mind, she turned back to her journal and set about completing what she’d come here to do. She managed only two sentences before her thoughts drifted away like chime kites caught on the wind.

The apartment was filled with the faintest of ghostly whispers.

She could imagine Lobia sitting beside her, imparting wisdom, counseling her. In one of their many conversations, the old woman had explained how she had come to be selected as a Truthsayer, how she had shown more ability than hundreds of other Sisters. In her heart, however, Lobia would have preferred to remain at the Mother School, tending the orchards, a duty now ably performed by Reverend Mother Thora. Regardless of her personal wishes, a Bene Gesserit performed the duties assigned to her. Such as marrying the Emperor.

Lobia had found time in her assignment to give scolding lectures to Sisters stationed in the Palace, even to Anirul herself. While doing so, the cantankerous woman would wag her withered-stick forefinger to emphasize each point. With Anirul’s eyes closed, the memory of Lobia’s laugh drifted back— a cross between a cackle and a snort that came at odd moments.

The two women had not been close in the beginning of their relationship, and had in fact experienced some friction over access to the Emperor. Anirul found it disquieting and frustrating whenever she saw her husband and Lobia engaged in extensive private conversation. Sensing this, Lobia had told her with a wrinkled smile, “Shaddam loves his reins of power far more than he could ever love any woman, my Lady. It is not me he is interested in; it is what I have to tell him. The Emperor worries about enemies at every turn and wants to know if they are lying to him, scheming to take his power, his wealth, even his life.”

As the years went by and Anirul gave him no male heir, Shaddam had grown even more distant toward her. Before long, he would probably dispose of her and secure another wife who would dutifully bear him a son. His father Elrood had done that enough times.

But, unknown to Shaddam, Anirul had already introduced an undetectable agent into her husband during their infrequent sexual sessions. After five daughters, he would never conceive another child. The Emperor was sterile— now that he and Anirul had served the Sisterhood’s purposes. Shaddam IV had been with enough other women that he should have been able to guess his condition, but the man would never consider that something might be wrong with him, not when he could blame someone else….

As all of this came back to her, Anirul opened her eyes and scribbled furiously with the virtual pen. But again she paused, thinking she heard something. Someone talking in the corridor outside? Stealthy footsteps? She listened carefully, but heard nothing more.

She rolled the virtual writing implement in her hand… and heard the noises again— louder this time— as if people were inside the room with her. Whispers rose to incomprehensible sentence fragments and then drifted off. Nervously, Anirul left the desk and searched the empty closets, the largest trunks, anyplace where someone might be hiding.

Again, nothing.

The voices grew louder, and with a start Anirul finally recognized a new clamor from Other Memory, an increasingly unruly surge. She had never experienced such an outpouring before, and wondered what had triggered it. Her own search? The turmoil of her troubled thoughts? This time the voices seemed to be around her, as well as inside.

The echoes rose in volume, as if she were in a chamber filled with argumentative Sisters, but she could see none of them and could not understand their garbled, overlapping conversation. Each one had something to say, but the words were confusing, contradictory.

Anirul considered fleeing Lobia’s empty apartment, but thought better of it. If the multitude-within was trying to contact her, attempting to say something important, she needed to learn what it was. “Lobia? Are you there?”

In response, the storm of words shifted like a ghostly cloud. Voices faded and grew louder, like poorly tuned comsignals struggling through a raging static discharge. Some of the long-dead women screamed to be heard over the others, but still Anirul could not comprehend. They seemed to be calling out the various names of the Kwisatz Haderach in many languages.

Suddenly all sound diminished inside her head. Anirul’s head rang with a disquieting silence, and she felt a sick cramping in her stomach.

She stared at the sensory-conceptual journal still hovering above the desk. The previous time that she had detected agitation in Other Memory, she had also been writing in her journal. At that time, she had probed deeply into that realm, only to find herself blocked by a swirling mist.

The two experiences were different, but she received the same message from each. Something was wrong in the clamorous throng of her female ancestors. This time the incomprehensible voices were even more disturbed, coming unbidden.

If she did not discover why, her life— or, worse, the Kwisatz Haderach program, which was her entire reason for existence— might be in grave danger.