As he fled through the imperial palace carrying the kidnapped baby, Piter de Vries made decisions based on instinct and split-second assessments. Mentat decisions. He did not regret taking advantage of a brief and unexpected opportunity, but he wished he could have planned an actual escape route. The infant squirmed in his hands, but he tightened his grip.

If de Vries could make it out of the Palace, the Baron would be so pleased.

After bounding down a steep service stairway, the interim Harkonnen Ambassador kicked open a door and lunged into a narrow, alabaster-arched hallway. He paused to recall his mental map of the labyrinthine Palace, determining where he was. Thus far, he had taken random turns and passages in order to be unpredictable, and to avoid curious courtiers and Palace guards. After an instant of introspection, he recognized that this corridor led toward the study and play rooms used by the Emperor’s daughters.

De Vries stuffed a corner of the blanket into the infant’s mouth to suppress its crying, then reconsidered as the baby began to thrash and choke. When he removed the cloth, the child wailed even louder than before.

He sprinted through the structural nucleus of the Palace, his feet whispering across the floor. Closer to the Princesses’ quarters, the walls and ceiling were of pitted crimson rock imported from Salusa Secundus. The simple architecture and lack of adornment stood in stark contrast with the opulent sections of the sprawling residence. Though they were Imperial offspring, Shaddam lavished few fineries on his unwanted daughters, and his wife Anirul seemed to be raising them in Bene Gesserit austerity.

A series of plaz windows lined the hallway on both sides, and the Mentat glanced into each room as he ran past. This Atreides brat counted for little. If the situation took a dramatic downturn, he might need a Corrino daughter hostage instead to improve his bargaining position.

Or would the Emperor even care?

During his months of careful observation and planning, de Vries had set up two separate hiding places in the Imperial Office Complex, accessible through tunnels and passageways that linked it with the Palace. His ambassadorial credentials granted him the access he needed. Run faster! He knew ways of contacting groundcar drivers, and thought he might reach the spaceport, even under alarms and crackdowns.

But something had to be done to quiet this child.

Rounding a turn he nearly bumped into a boyish-faced Sardaukar soldier, who obviously thought the uniformed de Vries was another guard. “Hey, what’s the matter with the baby?” Then a voice crackled in his com-ear.

Trying to distract him from the transmission, de Vries said, “Trouble upstairs! Just getting him to safety. I guess we’re baby-sitters now.” With his left hand, he shoved the wrapped infant into the other man’s face. “Here, take him.”

When the surprised soldier faltered, de Vries used his other hand to slam a dagger into his exposed side. Without bothering to make certain the soldier was dead, de Vries ran on with the baby in one arm and the dagger in his free hand. He realized, belatedly, that he was leaving too much of a trail behind.

Just ahead, he saw a flash of blonde hair. Someone had looked out of a room and ducked back inside, behind the hall windows. One of Shaddam’s daughters? A witness?

He sidestepped to the room, ducked inside, but didn’t see her. The girl must be hiding behind furniture or under the filmbook-strewn desk. Some toys that belonged to little Chalice were scattered about, but the nursemaid must have taken the child away. Still, he sensed a presence. Someone was hiding.

The oldest daughter… Irulan?

She might have seen him murder the guard, and he could not allow her to notify anyone. His disguise would keep her from identifying him later, but that wouldn’t help if he was caught with the brat in his hands, scarlet stains on his uniform, blood on his knife blade. Warily, he strode deeper into the chamber, his muscles coiled. He noticed a doorway on the opposite wall, slightly ajar.

“Come out and play, Irulan!”

At a noise behind him, he whirled.

The Emperor’s wife moved with uncharacteristic awkwardness, not the smooth, gliding manner so typical of the witches. She did not look well.

Anirul saw the baby and recognized it as Jessica’s newborn son. Then startled realization flashed across her face as she noticed the Mentat’s smudged makeup, the too-red lips. “I know you.” She detected murder in the disguised man’s eyes— a willingness to do anything.

All the voices-within shouted warnings simultaneously. Anirul grimaced in pain and grabbed her temples.

Seeing her falter, de Vries lashed out with the dagger, as swiftly as a venomous serpent.

Though fogged by the clamor tormenting her, the Kwisatz Mother went into a blur of motion, darting to one side with suddenly restored Bene Gesserit grace and lethal fighting skills. Her speed surprised him, and de Vries was thrown off-balance for just an instant. His knife failed to connect with flesh.

From within her sleeve Anirul removed a favored weapon of the Sisterhood and grabbed de Vries by his sinewy neck. She held a poison gom jabbar at his throat, the silver needle tip glittering with poison.

“You know what this is, Mentat. Surrender the child, or die.”

“What’s being done to find my son?” Duke Leto stood beside Chamberlain Ridondo, looking at the carnage inside the birthing room.

Ridondo’s high forehead glistened with perspiration. “There will be an investigation, of course. All suspects will be interviewed.”

“Interviewed? You make it sound so polite.” The two Medical Sisters lay butchered on the floor. Closer to the door, a Sardaukar had been stabbed to death. Nearby, Jessica had struggled groggily on the birthing bed. So close. The assassin could have killed her too! He raised his voice. “I am talking about now, sir. Has the Palace been sealed off? My son’s life is at stake.”

“I assume the Palace Guard is taking care of all security matters.” Ridondo tried to sound placating. “I suggest we leave it in the hands of professionals.”

“You assume? Who is in charge here?”

“The Emperor is not currently present to command the Sardaukar, Duke Leto. Certain lines of authority must be—”

Leto stormed out into the corridor, where he spotted a Levenbrech. “Have you sealed off the Palace and all surrounding buildings?”

“We are handling the matter, sir. Please do not interfere.”

“Interfere?” Leto’s gray eyes flashed. “An attack has been made upon my son and his mother.” He looked at the security name tag on the officer’s lapel. “Levenbrech Stivs, under the Emergency Powers Act I am assuming command of the Palace Guard. Do you understand?”

“No, my Lord, I do not.” The officer rested his hand on a stun-baton at his waist. “You have no authority to—”

“If you draw that weapon against me, you are a dead man, Stivs. I am a Duke of the Landsraad and blood cousin of Emperor Shaddam Corrino IV. You have no right to countermand my orders, especially not in this matter.” His features hardened, and he felt the hot flow of blood in his arteries.

The officer hesitated, looked over the angry Duke’s shoulder at Ridondo.

“The kidnapping of my son on Palace property is an attack against House Atreides, and I demand my rights under the Landsraad Charter. This is an emergency military situation, and in the absence of the Emperor and his Supreme Bashar, my authority exceeds any man’s.”

Chamberlain Ridondo took a moment to think. “Duke Atreides is correct. Do as he says.”

The Sardaukar guards seemed impressed by the Atreides nobleman and his quick, firm grasp of command. Stivs barked into a com-unit on his lapel, “Seal off the Palace, all surrounding buildings, and the commons. Begin a thorough search for the person who has kidnapped the newborn son of Duke Leto Atreides. During this crisis, the Duke is temporarily in charge of the Palace Guard. Follow his orders.”

With a quick motion, Leto removed the officer’s com-unit and secured it to the lapel of his own red uniform. “Get yourself another one.” Breathing hard, he pointed down the corridor. “Stivs, take half of these men and search the north section of this level. The rest of you, come with me.”

Leto accepted a stun-baton but kept one hand on the jeweled hilt of the ceremonial dagger the Emperor had given him years earlier. If his son had been harmed in any way, a mere stun-baton would not be sufficient.

With Anirul’s gom jabbar pressed against his throat, Piter de Vries froze in place. Just a prick, a tiny scratch, and the poison would kill him instantly. Anirul’s hands trembled too much for the Mentat’s comfort.

“I cannot defeat you,” he said in the barest of whispers, careful not to move his larynx. His fingers loosened their hold on the blanket-wrapped child. Would that be enough to divert her attention? Make her hesitate for just an instant.

In his other hand he held the bloodied dagger.

Anirul tried to separate her own thoughts from the ever-increasing clamor within. While four of her daughters were too young to understand, the eldest— Irulan— had watched her mother’s physical and mental degeneration. She was sorry that Irulan had to see that, wished she could have spent more time with her daughter, raising her to be a prime Bene Gesserit.

Knowing a murderer was loose in the Palace, the Emperor’s wife had come to the study and play rooms to make certain her children were safe. It had been the brave, impulsive act of a mother.

The Mentat flinched, and she pushed harder with the needle, attuned to his every impulse. A diamond of perspiration glistened on his forehead and rolled slowly down his powdered temple. The little tableau seemed to last forever.

The baby squirmed in his arms. Even though this was not the infant the Sisterhood had anticipated for their all-important plans, it was still a link to a web more complex than even Anirul could comprehend. As the Kwisatz Mother, her life had been focused on bringing about the final steps in the breeding program, first arranging for the birth of Jessica herself, and then her baby.

The genetic linkages had become increasingly pure after millennia of refinement. But in human birth, even with the powers and talents of Bene Gesserit breeding mothers, nothing could be guaranteed. Odds and percentages prevailed, never certainty. After ten thousand years, was it possible to be accurate to within a single generation? Could this baby be the One?

She looked into the child’s alert, intelligent eyes. Even so newly born, the little fellow had a presence about him, a steadiness in how he held his head. She felt a stirring inside her mind, a rumbling, unintelligible cacophony. Are you the One, the Kwisatz Haderach? Have you arrived a generation early?

“Perhaps… we should discuss this,” de Vries said, barely moving his mouth. “An impasse serves neither of us.”

“Perhaps I should waste no more time and just kill you.”

The voices kept trying to tell her something, to warn her, but in the turmoil she couldn’t understand. What if she had been sent to these rooms in the Palace, not to check on her own daughters, but to save this special child?

She heard a babble of voices like an oncoming tsunami— and remembered her intense dream of a worm fleeing across the desert from a silent pursuer. But the pursuer was no longer quiet. It was a multitude.

A clear voice broke through the cacophony: old Lobia, with her wry, all-knowing voice, speaking in a soothing tone. Anirul saw the words coming from the kidnapper’s sapho-stained mouth, a wavering reflection in the windowplaz fronting the hallway.

You will join us soon. Her moment of shock caused her to jerk back. The gom jabbar slipped from her grasp and tumbled toward the floor. Inside her head, Lobia’s voice screamed out a desperate warning, breaking through the background noise. Beware the Mentat!

Before the silver needle could even strike the tiles, de Vries had already brought the dagger up in a blur, slicing through black robes and deep into her flesh.

As the first gasp exploded from Anirul’s mouth, he struck again, and a third time, like a heat-maddened viper.

The gom jabbar hit the floor with a sound like shattering crystal.

Now the voices roared around Anirul, louder and clearer, drowning out the pain. “The child has been born, the future changed.…”

“We see a fragment of the plan, a tile of the mosaic.”

“Understand this— the Bene Gesserit plan is not the only one.”

“Wheels within wheels—”

“Within wheels—”

“Within wheels—”

Lobia’s voice sounded louder than all the rest, more comforting. “Come with us, observe more… observe it all.”

Lady Anirul Corrino’s dying lips trembled with what might have been a smile, and she knew suddenly that this one child would reshape the galaxy after all and change the course of humanity more than the hoped-for Kwisatz Haderach ever could.

She felt herself falling to the floor. Anirul could not see through the mists of her approaching death, but she understood one thing with absolute certainty.

The Sisterhood will endure.

Even as the Kwisatz Mother collapsed beside her poison needle, de Vries was running back out into the hallway with the hostage baby. They slipped through a side passageway.

“You’d better be worth all this trouble,” he muttered to the wrapped infant. Now that he had killed the Emperor’s wife, Piter de Vries wondered if he would ever get out of the Palace alive.