The mysterious Bene Gesserit Mother School had been a peculiar experience for the three Richesian inventors, but Haloa Rund could not say exactly why. For some reason, the trip to Wallach IX seemed unreal.

The return shuttle approached the laboratory satellite of Korona. Rund sat meekly in a passenger seat, wondering if the Bene Gesserit would actually commission their large-scale project from his uncle, Count Ilban Richese. The Sisterhood could certainly afford to pay for technical assistance with their power systems; the work would be a boon for the Richesian economy.

Oddly, though, Rund couldn’t remember exactly what he and his companions had actually done on Wallach IX. It had been an exhausting trip, with many meetings. They had worked up detailed plans and suggestions for the Sisters… hadn’t they? Director Kinnis and bookish Talis Balt must still have the plans in their crystalboards. A stickler for schedules, Kinnis tracked the activities of all his lab employees to the nanosecond, using dictation cards that he always kept in his pocket. Whatever the bureaucrat didn’t have on his crystalboards, Talis Balt would surely remember.

But something inside Rund’s mind seemed slippery. Every time he tried to remember any specific conversation or particular design proposal he had made, his grasp of the subject slid sideways. He had never been so distractible before. In fact, he had always been obsessively focused, thanks in part to his minimal Mentat background.

Now, as their ship docked against the orbiting satellite, he had a vague memory of looking over facilities on Wallach IX. He and his colleagues had been inside the famed School, and he must have been paying attention. He did remember a sumptuous banquet the Sisters had thrown for them, the best meal he’d ever eaten. But he couldn’t recall any of the items on the menu.

Neither Balt nor Kinnis seemed perturbed, already discussing completely different work. The men didn’t mention the Bene Gesserit at all, focused instead on improving the manufacturing techniques for valuable Richesian mirrors in the orbital laboratory.

As he and his colleagues disembarked into the Korona research facility, Rund felt as if he were awakening from a bad dream. He turned around, disoriented, realizing that none of them had any luggage or personal articles with them. Not now, anyway. Had they packed any?

Glad to be back in the satellite lab facility, and eager to plunge into his continuing research and development work, he found himself tempted to forget anything to do with the Sisterhood. He resented the lost time… but wasn’t sure precisely how long he had been gone. He would have to check.

Walking beside Rund through the metal corridors, Flinto Kinnis and Talis Balt blinked in the harsh light. Struggling to think back to the Bene Gesserit banquet, Rund sensed fragments of thoughts filtering into the edge of his consciousness, like water seeping through a crack in a dike. He tried to use some of the Mentat techniques he had attempted to learn, long ago, but each time it was like grasping a moss-slicked rock. He wanted to know more. If the break became larger, perhaps the troublesome memory block would crumble away.

A cold feeling of dread weighed on him, and he began to feel dizzy. This wasn’t right. His ears rang. Did the witches do something to us?

He began to lose his balance on rubbery legs. Before his companions could help him, Rund slumped onto the cool metal deck. His ears kept ringing.

Leaning over the fallen man, Talis Balt wrinkled his smooth forehead. “What is it, Haloa? You want a medic?”

Kinnis pursed his lips. “Perhaps a furlough, Rund? I’m sure your uncle would allow it.” He seemed to be reassessing schedules in his mind. “I doubt the Bene Gesserit were serious about contracting our services anyway.”

Confused and alarmed, Rund seized on the comment. “Our services for what, Director?” The recent days were foggy shadows. How could he have forgotten so much so soon? “Do you remember?”

The bureaucrat sniffed. “Why, for their… project, of course. What does it matter? A wasted effort, if you ask me.”

To Rund’s mind, it seemed that his eyes had turned inward, revealing flashes of a Bene Gesserit woman, her lips phrasing harsh questions that echoed in his head. He saw her mouth opening and closing in slow motion, uttering strange words, her long fingers moving hypnotically.

He used Mentat mnemonics, focusing techniques. Moment by moment, the crack in the mental dike widened. He remembered tan cliffs, a rock quarry… a crashed ship, a specific comment. “You were friends of Chobyn.”

Abruptly, the mental block crumbled and broke, revealing everything. “Tell us what you know of this invention. How do we re-create it?” Still seated in the corridor, Rund began shouting commands. “Bring me a holorecorder, now. I need to get these details down.”

“He’s gone crazy,” Director Kinnis lamented. “Something snapped.”

But Talis Balt snatched one of the dictation cards from the bureaucrat’s pocket and handed it to his colleague. Rund grabbed it. “This is important! No time for questions before I lose contact.”

Without looking at either of his companions, he activated the voice pickup and spoke into it in a breathless rush. “Tenu Chobyn… his secret projects were of much concern to Premier Calimar. He disappeared… defected to House Harkonnen. Too many gaps in the records he left behind. Ah, now we know what he was working on! A generator for an invisibility field.”

Balt knelt next to him, his smooth brow furrowed. Kinnis looked as if he still wanted to call for medics and drugs, and a relief ship to take the inventor down to Richese. Kinnis didn’t like problems that unsettled the workforce, but he had to take a light touch with the Count’s nephew.

More images flooded into Rund’s mind, and his words came out rapid-fire. “He used his field generator to make a warship invisible… Harkonnens crashed it into the Mother School. That is why we were brought to Wallach IX, to help them understand the incredible technology—”

Flinto Kinnis had heard enough. “Nonsense, we were summoned to discuss work on a…”

“I’m sure I have everything in my notes,” Balt added, but then frowned.

“Do you remember the quarry?” Rund demanded. “The women who interrogated us? They did something to erase our memories.”

Clutching the plaz dictation card, the impatient inventor chattered everything he could remember. A curious crowd began to gather in the satellite corridor, and as Rund painted images from his restored memory, Kinnis and Balt could not tear themselves away. Detail after detail hammered at their doubts, but still they could not remember.

Obsessed, Rund demanded more dictation cards and spoke into them for hours, refusing any food or water, until finally he lay on the floor of the corridor, exhausted. His work had only just begun.