For weeks, C’tair Pilru and the disguised Bene Gesserit Cristane worked together in the dark underground passages of Ix. The wiry, androgynous Sister’s intensity and determination were matched only by C’tair’s vehement hatred of the Tleilaxu.

Drawing upon skills learned during decades of hiding and preying on the Tleilaxu, C’tair taught her to navigate the back routes for shelter and food. He knew how to disappear into labyrinthine alleys where neither the Tleilaxu nor the Sardaukar ventured.

For her part, Cristane was a fast learner and deadly with her hands. Though her mission was to obtain information on Tleilaxu research activities— especially any mention of the mysterious Project Amal and how it might relate to spice— she relished the opportunity to aid C’tair in creating mayhem for its own sake.

“You saw something in the research pavilion,” she said. “I must get inside there and find out what experiments the Tleilaxu are performing. That is my assignment.”

In a dim tunnel one evening, they had captured one of the invaders to find out what was taking place inside the sealed laboratory complex. But even with the harshest and most sophisticated Bene Gesserit interrogation techniques, the captive had revealed nothing… probably because he didn’t know. Efficiently, Cristane had killed him in disgust.

Later, C’tair killed a lab bureaucrat himself. He wondered if he and his new comrade should start keeping score. With her help, and the knowledge that Prince Rhombur was on his way at last, C’tair showed little restraint. The flames of his vengeance burned brightly.

He knew, too, that his brother D’murr was dead.

Cristane had told him of the Heighliner disaster over Wallach IX, as well as the second ship that had disappeared into uncharted space. With a shudder, he recalled his Navigator brother’s strange last contact, D’murr’s inhuman cry of anguish and despair— and then nothing. By the leaden feeling in his heart, he had already sensed the loss of his twin….

One night, lying in one of his shielded bolt-holes, C’tair stirred fitfully on the thin sleeping pallet, unable to sleep, grieving for everyone and everything he had lost.

Cristane, breathing deeply on an adjacent bed, seemed to be in a meditative sleep. Suddenly he heard her voice in the darkness. “Bene Gesserits are trained not to show emotion, but I recognize your suffering, C’tair. We have endured losses, each of us.” Her words filled the shadows between them.

“I was a child on Hagal, orphaned in many ways. My stepfather abused me, damaged me… and the Sisterhood spent many years healing my wounds, toughening my scars, making me into what I am.” Her voice sounded strained; she had never spoken of such things to a man before. Cristane didn’t really know why, but for once in her life, she wanted someone to know her.

When he moved over onto her bed, she allowed him to put an arm around her rigid shoulders. He wasn’t sure of his own intentions, but it had been so long since he had let down his guard, even for a moment. Cristane grew quiet. Her skin was softly sensual, but he tried not to think about it. She could have seduced him easily, but she did not.

“If we find a way into the research pavilion, is there a chance we could help Miral?” he asked in the quiet darkness. “If only to end her suffering?”

“Yes… provided I can get inside.”

She gave him a brief, dry kiss, but his mind was already on Miral and the ephemeral relationship they had shared before she was taken so cruelly from him….

Furtively, the commando Sister paused before the protected doorway. Beyond the bioscanner barriers lay the large central gallery of the lab complex, with its high, catwalk-laced ceiling and sprawling rows of tanks on the floor. If she succeeded in infiltrating the research pavilion, Cristane knew she would probably have to kill the captive Bene Gesserit Sister to free her from any misery she might be suffering.

C’tair had dressed Cristane in stolen Tleilaxu clothes and treated her face and hands with harsh chemicals to make her appear like the gray-skinned men. “There, now you look as awful as they do.” Fortunately, no one she encountered in the corridors asked her any direct questions; she could duplicate their guttural accents, but knew only a few words in their secret language.

Concentrating, employing the most sophisticated Bene Gesserit skills, Cristane adjusted her internal body chemistry so that the crude bioscanner would identify her as a Tleilaxu. Taking a deep breath, she stepped into the orange static of the energy field, attempting to get inside to the laboratory floor.

Her skin tingled as cellular probes examined her. Presently, she felt a release and stepped through. With rapid and efficient steps, she made her way toward one side. Her eyes drank in the horrific details of strange tank enclosures, experiments the Tleilaxu were performing on female bodies. The air was heavy with the reek of soured melange wafting up from brutalized flesh.

Suddenly, an alarm roared through the walls. The bioscanner doorway behind her flickered bright orange. Cristane had confused the unit long enough to pass through, but now she was trapped inside the lab.

Running as fast as she could, looking from one slack female face to another, Cristane finally found the bloated form, the gruesome remnants of Miral Alechem. She heard excited Tleilaxu voices behind her— thin, squealing shouts— and the patter of slippered footsteps. She also heard the heavier footfalls of Sardaukar boots and shouted military commands.

“Forgive me, my Sister.” Cristane thrust an explosive wafer beneath one of Miral’s shoulder blades, hiding it between the tubes and pump-lines that kept her alive. Then the Bene Gesserit commando dodged between flaccid axlotl tanks, reached another aisle and ran as fast as she could.

So many women, so many spiritless faces….

Sardaukar guards blocked her way. Cristane fled in another direction, dropping a few more explosive wafers with brief detonation delays. She knew it was only a hopeless stalling tactic. She steeled herself for a fight to the death, even against Sardaukar. She might be able to kill a few of them.

C’tair would have been proud of her.

A stunner caught Cristane in the spine, spinning her around, making her nerves crackle. She tumbled onto her back, fell hard, and couldn’t move….

As the Emperor’s soldiers closed in, an explosion ripped the air, vaporizing Miral Alechem and destroying a whole section of axlotl tanks around her. While fires raged and the smoke thickened, fire-suppression systems dumped dry chemicals into the air like a sinister fog. Paralyzed, Cristane couldn’t see more than a tiny field of view.

The dark, rodent eyes of a Tleilaxu Master peered down at her. He shook with rage. “You ruined my best axlotl tank, the one I need the most.” Cristane had been trained by the Sisterhood, enough to understand parts of their guttural private language. The tonalities, the expressions on their grayish faces, filled in the details she did not know.

“Four tanks were destroyed, Master Ajidica,” another Tleilaxu man said in a whining voice.

Cristane shuddered, incapable of speaking. At least she had freed her Sister and several other women from their degradation.

Leaning close to examine the prisoner, the Master touched Cristane’s treated skin. “You are not one of us.”

Guards tore her clothing, revealing Cristane’s slender, pale-skinned form. “A female!” Ajidica ran his fingers over her compact breasts as he contemplated putting her in immediate pain for what she had done to his special axlotl tank, the only one that had produced ajidamal on its own. But by now he had others.

“A strong female of childbearing age, Master Researcher,” one of his assistants said. “Shall we hook her up?”

Ajidica thought of the powerful biological agents and personality destroying chemicals he might use. “We must interrogate her first, before we do too much damage to her mind.” Leaning close to Cristane, he whispered, “You’ll suffer a long time for this.”

She felt someone lifting her and moving her. The air reeked of sour spice. While she lay outwardly helpless, she ordered her body to break down the gaseous components in the air of the laboratory and analyze them.

The spice… No— not real melange. It is something else….

Strong hands hooked her up to a pumping apparatus on an empty table. She wondered how long she would remain conscious. As a Bene Gesserit, she could resist the drugs and poisons, for a while at least. Victory on Ix! She clung to the words C’tair had passed on to her, wishing she might have shouted them aloud, but she could not speak.

Cristane felt herself merging into the diabolocal Tleilaxu mechanism, learning secrets she had never wanted to discover….