Following a fitful night in her fourth set of unfamiliar apartments, Lady Anirul lurched out of bed and made it to the doorway. The voices followed her, like shadows in her skull. Even the ghost Lobia had joined the clamor, and she offered no assistance, no refuge.

What are you all trying to tell me?

The ever-vigilant Medical Sister Yohsa approached, arms loose at her sides, body poised in a combat stance to prevent Anirul from passing her. “My Lady, you must return to bed and get your rest.”

“There is no rest in there!” Anirul wore a loose-fitting nightgown that clung to her perspiration-damp skin, and her copper-brown hair stuck out in all directions. Lines and shadows etched her features around bloodshot eyes.

Previously, under Anirul’s frenetic direction, servants had transferred her immense bed and heavy furnishings from one room to another, seeking a sufficiently quiet place. But nothing gave her relief.

Yohsa kept her voice calm. “All right, my Lady. We will find some other place for you—”

Swaying as if on the verge of fainting, Anirul made a quick, aggressive move and shoved the Medical Sister off-balance. The little woman stumbled over a table and sent an expensive ornate vase crashing to the floor. Leaping past her, Anirul fled down the tiled hallway, knocking a breakfast tray out of a maidservant’s hands.

Running wildly, Anirul turned a corner, her bare feet slipping on the polished floor, and crashed into Mohiam, scattering a pile of loose papers and ridulian crystal sheets the Truthsayer had been carrying. Reacting quickly, Mohiam abandoned her documents and gave chase, but lost ground. Within moments, a panting Yohsa caught up with her.

Ahead of them, wild-eyed Anirul opened the door to a service stairway. She surged through, but caught a foot on the hem of her sleeping gown. Crying out, she tumbled down the stairs.

The pursuing Bene Gesserits arrived in a rush at the top of the stairs, just as Anirul, bruised and bleeding, struggled to sit up on the landing below. Mohiam hurried down and knelt beside the Emperor’s wife. Under the guise of helping to steady her, the Reverend Mother gripped Anirul’s arm and placed another hand around her waist, thus preventing her from escaping again.

Yohsa bent to study the injuries. “Her breakdown has been a long time coming. And I fear it will only grow worse.” The Medical Sister had already administered increasing doses of powerful psychotropic drugs in unsuccessful attempts to suppress the storms of Other Memory.

Mohiam helped the injured Sister to her feet. Anirul’s gaze darted around in the shadowy stairwell as if she were a cornered animal. “The voices within cannot be silenced. They want me to join them.”

“Don’t say that, my Lady.” Mohiam added a soothing form of Voice, which seemed to have no effect on Anirul. The Medical Sister placed a quicknit amplifier patch on Anirul’s wounded forehead. Together, they raised the Emperor’s wife, slowly leading her back to her rooms.

“I hear them clamoring in my head, but they utter only sentence fragments in a variety of languages— some familiar and some alien. I cannot understand what they are trying to tell me, why they are so alarmed.” Anirul’s voice throbbed with anguish. “Lobia is in there, too, but even she cannot rise above the others and help me.”

The Medical Sister poured spice tea from a ready pot on a credenza in the room. After she collapsed on an antique Raphaelian couch in her parlor, Anirul turned her hazel-eyed gaze to the dark figure of Mohiam. “Yohsa, leave us. I need to speak with the Imperial Truthsayer. Alone.”

The Medical Sister became stern, but finally, grudgingly, she agreed to leave them alone. Lying on the sofa, Anirul inhaled a long, shuddering breath. “Secrets can be such a great burden.”

Studying her carefully, Mohiam took a sip of spice tea and felt the melange flow smoothly into her awareness. “I have never thought of it that way, my Lady. I consider it a great honor to be entrusted with important information.”

Lady Anirul took a sip of tepid tea and frowned, as if it contained a foul-tasting medicine. “Soon Jessica will give birth to a daughter who is destined to bear our long-awaited Kwisatz Haderach.”

“May we live to see that occur,” Mohiam said, as if uttering a prayer.

Now Anirul seemed entirely reasonable, and conspiratorial. “But I have grave concerns as the Kwisatz Mother. I alone see and remember all aspects of our breeding program. Why is Other Memory so disturbed, and why now when we are so close to accomplishing our goal? Are they trying to warn us of some impending danger to Jessica’s child? Is a disaster about to occur? Is the mother of the Kwisatz Haderach not going to be what we expect? Or is it something about the Kwisatz Haderach himself?”

“Only two more weeks,” Mohiam said. “Jessica is due to deliver soon.”

“I have decided that she must be told at least part of the truth, so that she can better protect herself and the child. Jessica must understand her destiny, and her importance to us all.”

Mohiam swallowed more tea while trying to cover her surprise at the suggestion. She felt a great affection for her secret daughter, who had also been her student for years on Wallach IX. Jessica’s future, her destiny, was greater than either Mohiam’s or Anirul’s. “But… to reveal so much, Lady Anirul? And you want me to tell her?”

“You are her birth-mother, after all.”

Yes, Mohiam agreed, the girl must be told at least a part of the truth. Even in her tormented state, Lady Anirul was right about that. But Jessica does not need to know the identity of her father. That would be too cruel.