Hunters of Dune

1

When the ghola of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen was seven years old, the Face Dancers commanded Uxtal to take him to the ocean world of Dan.

"Dan… Caladan. Why are we going there?" Uxtal asked. "Does this have something to do with the fact that it was once the home-world of House Atreides, enemy of House Harkonnen?" In his joy to be going away from Matre Superior Hellica, the Lost Tleilaxu researcher found the courage to view the Face Dancer as his rescuer.

"We have found something there. Something that could allow us to use the resurrected Baron." The Face Dancer escort raised a hand, stopping the question Uxtal was about to ask. "That is all you need to know."

While he had prayed fervently for the day when he could relinquish the difficult ghola child, Uxtal now worried that Khrone might consider his usefulness to be at an end. Maybe the Face Dancers would come up behind him, place fingers over his eyes, and squeeze, as they'd done to Elder Burah… He hurried toward the shuttle that would take him and the brat away from Tleilax. He mumbled to himself, like a personal mantra: I am still alive. Still alive!

At least he would be away from Ingva and Hellica, the stench of sligs, and the screams of torture victims being wrung dry of their pain-induced chemicals.

IN THE intervening years, Hellica had continued to enjoy young Vladimir Harkonnen. They were birds of a feather. Uxtal found it chilling to hear the seven-year-old boy and the Matre Superior laugh together as they discussed people who didn't deserve to live anymore, choosing victims for the torture laboratories.

The treacherous little boy reported constantly to the pretender queen, informing her of purported mistakes or indiscretions committed by laboratory assistants. Uxtal had lost many of his best helpers that way, and the scheming child fully comprehended the power he held. Uxtal could barely master his own terror in the ghola's presence. Though only a child, Vladimir was nearly the same size as the diminutive Tleilaxu.

Unexpectedly, though, Uxtal had managed to endear himself to the ghola in a way that had the benefit of driving a wedge between the boy and Hellica. As a Tleilaxu, he had many personal habits that outsiders considered revolting, such as his proclivity to emit coarse bodily noises. Seeing the Baron's delight in such grossness, Uxtal began to embellish his own habits around the child, which gave the two of them a peculiar bond.

Miffed at Vladimir's fickle attentions and showing no more maturity than the child ghola, Hellica had stopped associating with the boy. She reacted with haughty indifference when the Guildship came to take Uxtal and the ghola away to Dan. But the anxious researcher knew she would be there waiting when he returned…

AFTER A foldspace journey, the Tleilaxu and his charge rode a shuttle down to the watery planet. En route they played a private game, competing with one another to see who could be the most disgusting, to see if they could get a reaction out of the bland and stony Face Dancers accompanying them. Vladimir, with an amazing repertoire of scatological talents, made more revolting sounds and noxious odors than anyone Uxtal had ever encountered. After each display, the cherubic boy grinned fiercely.

Uxtal conceded defeat, knowing it was safer to lose to a Harkonnen than to win, even without Matre Superior Hellica leering over their shoulders.

One of the Face Dancers stood at the shuttle's viewport, pointing outside.

"The ruins of Castle Caladan, the ancestral home of House Atreides." The edifice lay in broken fragments of stone at the edge of a seaside cliff, with a landing field not far away on the outskirts of a nearby fishing village.

The Face Dancer obviously intended to bring Vladimir to a place that might evoke a visceral reaction, but Uxtal detected no glimmer of recognition in the boy's spider-black eyes, no spark of recollection. The Baron ghola was far too young to access his memories yet, but by placing him in the environment of his archenemies, with so many potential memory triggers, maybe they would awaken something after all, or at least lay a good foundation for success.

Perhaps that was what Khrone wanted of them. Uxtal hoped so, wishing he could stay here on Dan permanently. Though somewhat austere and damp, the ocean world seemed a great improvement over Bandalong.

As soon as they stepped off the shuttle onto the paved field, Vladimir stared toward the ruined castle. His shaggy hair blew in a sea breeze. "My enemies lived here? This is where Duke Leto Atreides was from?"

Though Uxtal didn't know the answer for certain, he knew what the ghola boy wanted to hear. "Yes, he must have been where you are standing, breathing the same air that fills your lungs now."

"Why can't I remember? I want to remember. I want to know more than you told me, more than I can see in filmbooks." He stamped a foot on the ground.

"And one day you will. One day it will all come back to you."

"I want it now!" The child looked up with a peevish expression, puckering his lips. This, Uxtal knew, signified dangerous potential.

He took the boy's hand and led him quickly toward a waiting groundcar before the childish temper could explode. "Come, let's see what the Face Dancers have found."

2

The van Gogh painting hung on a metal wall of Sheeana's cabin. She had stolen the masterpiece from the Mother Superior's quarters before escaping from Chapterhouse. Of all the crimes she had committed during her flight, taking the van Gogh was her only selfish and unjustified act. For years, she had drawn comfort from this great work of art and everything it represented.

With the glowpanels adjusted to perfect illumination, Sheeana stood unblinking before the masterpiece. Though she had studied the painting meticulously many times, she still gained new insight from the daubs of bright paint, the thick brushstrokes, the chaotic flurry of creative energy. A deeply disturbed man, van Gogh had turned these splotches and smudges of color into a work of genius. Could pure, cold sanity have done as much?

Thatched Cottages at Cordeville had survived the atomic destruction of Earth ages ago, the Butlerian Jihad and ensuing dark ages, then Muad'Dib's Jihad, thirty-five hundred years of the Tyrant's rule, the Famine Times, and the Scattering. Without doubt, this fragile piece of art was blessed. But its creator had been driven to the brink of madness by his passions. Van Gogh had channeled his vision into color and form, a representational splash of reality so intense that it could only be conveyed on canvas.

One day she would show the painting to the ghola children. Paul Atreides, the oldest, was now five years old and showed every sign of being just a normal little boy. His "mother" Jessica was a year younger, the same age as the ghola of the warrior-Mentat Thufir Hawat. Paul's love, Chani, was only three, while the historic traitor to House Atreides, Wellington Yueh, was two, born at the same time that Sheeana had finally allowed Scytale to create a ghola of himself. The great planetologist and Fremen leader Liet-Kynes was a year-old baby, and the Naib Stilgar had just been born.

It would be years before the Bene Gesserit had any chance of triggering those ghola memories, before the historical re-creations could become the weapons and tools Sheeana needed. If she showed them the van Gogh painting right now, would they react based on some instinct from their past lives, or would they view the images with fresh eyes?

A genius from Ix had restored and enhanced the original; an invisibly thin but tough coating of plaz sealed and protected the masterwork from further aging.

The Ixian restorer had not only returned the painting to its original glory, he had added interactive simulations so that an appreciative observer could go through the process of every brushstroke, seeing the complex and primitive marvel as it had been created from layer upon layer of paint. Sheeana had experienced the instructional simulation enough times that she felt she could have repainted the cottages herself with her eyes closed. But even if she'd made a perfect copy, it wouldn't have been the same as the original.

Sheeana backed up to her bed and sat down, never taking her eyes from the painting. The voices in Other Memory seemed to appreciate it, though she kept the constant clamor under control.

Odrade-within spoke to her now in a scolding tone. I am sure other Sisters consider the theft of Vincent's painting to be more serious than stealing the no'ship or sandworms from the desert belt. Those things could be replaced, but not a masterpiece. "Maybe I am not the person you thought I was. But then, I—more than anyone else—can't live up to the myth built around me. Does the Cult of Sheeana still have followers out there in the Old Empire? Does your manufactured religion still revere me as an angel and a savior?"

The Bene Gesserit knew the powers of unflagging belief among vast populations.

The Sisters harnessed religions as weapons—created them, guided them, and turned them loose as one might aim an arrow from a bow.

Religions were odd things. They were born with the emergence of a strong and charismatic leader, yet somehow they grew more powerful after that keystone figure died, especially if martyred. No army ever fought harder without its bashar, no government grew stronger without its king or president, yet a religion without Sheeana spread faster as soon as the converts believed she was dead. Sheeana's unique background had given the Missionaria Protectiva plenty to work with, enough raw material to attract fanatics in droves.

Here in her quiet, peaceful quarters, she was glad to be far from all that.

At the thought of being a supposed martyr around whom a powerful religion had grown, she felt another life awaken and rise up within her, a distant, ancient voice: Both Muad'Dib and Liet-Kynes spoke against the dangers of following a charismatic hero.

When the lives within permitted it, she liked to delve deeply into lines of Other Memory, looking farther and farther back in time, into the backwash and whitewater rapids of the river of history. "I agree. That is why those who would throw away their lives in such a cause must be watched and guided."

Guided? Or manipulated?

"The difference is only a matter of words, not substance."

There are times when manipulating the masses is the only way to form an adequate defense. A fighting force of fanatics can surpass any number of enemy weapons.

"Paul Muad'Dib proved that. His bloody jihad rocked the galaxy."

The other voice chuckled within her. He was by no means the first to use such tactics. He learned much from the past. He learned much from me.

Sheeana cast her inner vision deep into her mind. "Who are you?" I am one who knows this subject better than most. Better than almost anyone. The voice paused. I am Serena Butler. I started the mother of all jihads.

WITH SERENA Butler's warning fresh in her mind, Sheeana strode through a lower-level corridor. Considering all the factions aboard the Ithaca, each with their own agendas and distortions, Sheeana knew of an innocent, yet impenetrable, source of information: the four captive Futars.

The creatures had caused no further trouble in the five years since one had escaped from the brig and killed a Sister, a minor proctor. Sheeana had visited them on occasion and talked to all of them, but so far she had been frustrated in her attempts to gain useful information. Nevertheless, Serena Butler had given her a new idea—to use religious awe as a tool.

Confident that she could protect herself if necessary, she released the one that called himself Hrrm from the large holding chamber where the Futars now lived. Years ago, after she had found Hrrm loose in the lower corridors, she had done everything possible to give him and his companions a larger space.

They were predators, feral things, and they needed to run and roam. So, Sheeana had added security systems to an armor-walled storage bay, then instructed several proctors and a few of the Rabbi's hardworking Jews to construct a simulated environment. The new enclosure did not fool the Futars, but it comforted them. Though not quite freedom, it was far preferable to the stark, separated brig cells.

During the construction of the special arboretum, Sheeana had done her best to find out what their original home with the Handlers had been like, but the Futars offered few details. Their vocabulary was quite limited. When they said "trees," she could not get them to describe the size or species. Instead, she resorted to showing them images until they finally grew excited, pointing to a tall, silver-barked aspen. Now, after ensuring that the nearby corridors and lift tubes were empty of distractions or threats, Sheeana took the tense beast-man to the observation chamber above the sand-filled hold.

Hrrm paced warily along beside her. The Honored Matres had abused him so terribly that he was reluctant to extend trust, but in the years since Sheeana had begun visiting the Futars, Hrrm had come to accept her.

In order to draw information out of them, Sheeana decided she needed to make a stronger impression. Although it went against her usual principles, she decided to portray herself as the Missionaria Protectiva did—as a religious figure who wielded mystical powers. The Futars would see her in a different light. Perhaps if she could impress Hrrm, he would answer the same questions, but in a more useful manner. The Futars were too simple and direct to keep secrets, but they plainly did not comprehend the implications of the things they understood.

Inside the observation chamber, the Futar stepped closer to the plaz window and looked down toward the sand inside the cargo hold. His pupils dilated and his nostrils flared when he saw movement there, the stirring dunes. One of the large sandworms rose up, its cavernous mouth yawning open as sand streamed from its rings. The blind head of a second worm rose, as if the creatures could sense Sheeana's presence high above them.

Hrrm backed away, his lips curling in a half snarl. His breathing sounded like a growl. "Monsters."

"Yes. My monsters." The Futar seemed confused and intimidated. Hrrm could not take his eyes from the worms. "My monsters," she repeated. "You stay here, and watch."

Sheeana slipped away from the chamber and code-locked the door behind her before taking a lift directly down to the cargo hold level. She opened the hatch and stepped out onto the temperature-controlled sands under artificial-yellow sunlight. The sandworms came toward her, shaking the hold with their weight and friction. Unafraid, Sheeana marched out and climbed up the dunes to face them.

With a burst of sand, the largest worm rose up, followed by a second one beside it, and a third behind her. Sheeana stared up toward the small, dark observation window through which she hoped Hrrm would be watching her with awe.

She ran toward the nearest worm, and the giant backed away, scuttling through the sand. She ran at another, and it also retreated; then she stood in the middle and began to twirl. She waved her hands at the worms and began swaying back and forth in a lissome dance. The worms followed, weaving and swaying.

Around her she could smell fresh spice, the bitter yet stimulating aroma that had no other natural origin. The worms circled her like sycophants. Finally Sheeana collapsed onto the sand and let them continue their circling, until all seven of the creatures reared up around her, and she dismissed them.

Turning tail, the creatures rippled through the contained dunes, leaving her.

Sheeana struggled to her feet, brushed herself off, and went to the hatch. By now, Hrrm should be sufficiently impressed.

When she reentered the observation chamber, the Futar turned to her, then backed away and raised his face, baring his own throat in a gesture of submission. Sheeana felt the warmth of the moment thrill through her. "My monsters," she said.

"You stronger than bad women," Hrrm said.

"Yes, stronger than Honored Matres."

The beast-man seemed to force the words from his throat. "Better than… Handlers."

Sheeana pounced. "Who are the Handlers?"

"Handlers."

"Where are they? Who are they?"

"Handlers… control Futars."

"What are Futars?" She needed to know more, needed to pin him down. There were too many questions about what the whores had brought from the Scattering and how they were all connected to the Outside Enemy.

"We are Futars," Hrrm said, sounding indignant. "Not fish people."

Ah, an intriguing new nugget of information. "Fish people?"

"Phibians." Hrrm growled with disgust. His mouth had trouble forming the word.

Sheeana frowned, imagining a modification that combined amphibious genes with humans, the same way feline DNA had been used to create Futars. Hybrids. "Did the Handlers create Phibians?"

"Handlers made Futars. We are Futars."

"Did they also create Phibians?"

Hrrm seemed to grow angry. "Handlers made Futars. Kill Honored Matres."

Sheeana fell silent, processing the information. The chromosomal tinkering that had created Futars might be similar to what was used to breed aquatic-dwelling "Phibians." While the Handlers had used those techniques to breed creatures who would target Honored Matres, someone else had made Phibians. To what purpose?

She wondered if Lost Tleilaxu from the Scattering had sold their skills to the highest bidder. If the Futars hated Phibians, then were the "fish people" somehow allied with the Honored Matres? Or was Sheeana simply reading too much into the crude utterances of the beast-man?

"Who are the Handlers?" she said again.

"You better," Hrrm answered. It was all the response she could get. Though he looked at her in a different way, Sheeana had achieved no insights or vital information. Just clues, without the necessary context.

She took him back to his holding cell and turned him loose among the other Futars. She didn't know how well they communicated with one another, but she was certain Hrrm would share what he had learned. He would tell his fellows about the woman who controlled the worms.

3

When the Enemy came, the New Sisterhood would not fight every battle alone.

Murbella refused to allow that. Though there was no central leadership in the disjointed civilizations of the Old Empire, she vowed that she would compel those civilizations to participate. They could not he allowed to sit on the sidelines when so much was at stake for humanity.

Under the instruction of her daughter Janess, as well as the veteran bashar Wikki Aztin, the Sisterhood's deadliest fighters were being trained, but Murbella needed access to powerful weapons, and a great many of them.

Therefore, she went to Richese, the primary competitor of Ix.

After Murbella's small shuttle landed in the main Richesian commercial complex, the Factory Commissioner arrived to meet her. He was a short man with a round face, close-cropped hair, and a sincere-looking smile that he could mount on his face at will. Two women and three men accompanied him, all wearing identical smart-looking business attire. They carried projection pads and easily revised papers, contracts, price lists. "The New Sisterhood wishes to do business with you, Commissioner. Please show me everything you have in the way of weaponry—offensive and defensive."

Beaming, the round-faced man reached forward to clasp her hand, which she reluctantly allowed him to shake. "Richese is glad to be of service, Mother Commander. We can manufacture anything from a dagger to a fleet of battleships. Are you interested in explosives, hand weapons, projectile launchers? We have defensive space mines that can be hidden by no-fields.

Please tell me, what is your particular need?"

Murbella met him with a hard gaze. "Everything. We're going to need the whole list."

For thousands of years Richese and Ix had been technological and industrial rivals, each with their own areas of expertise. Ix had made its name doing groundbreaking research, producing creative designs and pioneering new technologies. Though many of their projects failed spectacularly, the successful ones generated sufficient profits to more than pay for the mistakes.

Richese, on the other hand, was better at imitation than innovation. They were more conservative in the risks they took, yet increasingly ambitious in their output and efficiency. By taking advantage of economies of scale, cutting profit margins, and pushing automated factory lines to the very limits of what the strictures of the Butlerian Jihad allowed, Richese was able to produce sought-after items in enormous quantities at low cost. Murbella selected them over Ix because the New Sisterhood needed huge numbers of weapons—as soon as possible.

The business complex where the Factory Commissioner always met his potential customers included lush landscaping with parks and fountains; the buildings were clean, stylized, and welcoming. Any unsightly industrial zones remained far from view. Walking down spacious hallways lined with showcases of items that Richese could produce on a moment's notice, Murbella felt as if she were wandering through an unending exhibit hall of marketing displays.

Giving her plenty of time to examine the merchandise, the Commissioner chattered as they walked from one display case to another. "Since the death of the Tyrant and the Famine Times, Richese has been called on to provide defensive armaments for any number of brushfire wars. You will be satisfied with what we can produce."

"If we survive the coming conflict, then I will be satisfied."

She studied body armor and ship armor, pseudoatomics, lasguns, projectile launchers, microexplosives, pulse cannons, blasters, poison dusts, shard-daggers, flechette guns, disruptors, mind scramblers, offensive X-probes, hunter-seeker assassination tools, deceptives, energizers, burners, dart launchers, stun grenades, even genuine atomics "for display purposes only." A holo-model of Richese's southern continents showed vast shipyards producing space yachts and military no-ships.

Murbella said, "I want all of those space yachts converted into warships. In fact, we need to commandeer all of your factory systems. You must completely devote your production lines to producing the weapons we need."

The attorneys and salespeople gasped, then consulted with each other. The Factory Commissioner seemed alarmed. "That is quite an astonishing request, Mother Commander. We do have other customers, you know—"

"None more important than we are." She fixed him with a cold glare. "We will pay for the privilege, of course—in mélange."

The Commissioner's eyes lit up. "It has long been said that wartime is hard on people, but good for business. Doesn't the Guild have a standing order for all the spice your new desert belt produces?"

"I have severely restricted Guild purchases, though their demand remains high," Murbella said. The Richesian was already aware of this, of course. He was simply playing a game.

The hovering attorneys and sales representatives were mentally going through some preliminary calculations. After they were paid in mélange, the Richesians could turn around and sell the spice to the desperate Guild for ten times the already steep value the New Sisterhood had placed on it. They would reap profits backward and forward.

Murbella crossed her arms over her chest. "We will need a military force such as humanity has never before seen, because we face an Enemy unlike any other."

"I've heard rumors. Who is this foe and when will they strike? What do they want?" She blinked as a flicker of anxiety passed through her. "I wish I knew."

First, though, her fighting squads would face the rebel Honored Mattes in their dispersed enclaves, and for that she needed armored 'thopters, assault ships, heavy groundcars, personal projectile launchers, pulse rifles, and even razor-sharp mono-blade knives. Many of the battles against the dissidents would involve close-in fighting.

"We can provide certain items immediately from our stockpiles, a few ships, some space mines. One warlord customer recently suffered from… um, an assassination. Therefore his completed order remains unclaimed, and we can offer you all of it."

"I'll take it with me now," she said.

THE MOTHER COMMANDER continued to train her troops, honing them into a razor-sharp weapon. Wearing a black singlesuit uniform, Murbella stood beside Janess on a suspensor platform that floated low over the largest training field. Below, in midday sunlight, her hand-picked troops went through increasingly difficult personal combat routines, never resting, never tolerating the smallest mistake.

Upon hearing that Murbella's special squad had crushed the encampment of dissidents on Chapterhouse, her advisors had been shocked at the swift brutality, but the Mother Commander stood firm against the uproar. "I am not Bashar Miles Teg. He could have used his reputation to subtly manipulate the malcontents, and might have reached a compromise that skated past violence.

But the Bashar is no longer with us, and I fear his clever tactics will not be effective against the Armageddon forces of the Enemy. Violence will become more and more necessary."

The women had found no effective counterargument.

After that first decisive battle, the Mother Commander's crack forces took a new name for themselves: Valkyries.

Murbella challenged her Valkyries to master a type of fighting that Janess had rediscovered in the archives: the techniques of the Sword-masters of Ginaz. By resurrecting that training discipline and arming her Sisters with skills that no one alive remembered, the Mother Commander intended to produce fighters better equipped than any before them to neutralize the entrenched Honored Matres.

At the moment, the squads were executing a complex maneuver in which they fought against mock enemy troops on the ground, attacking them in spinning star formations. Viewed from the high suspensor platform, the show was quite impressive as the five points of each star rotated and surged against the opposing force and sent them fleeing in disarray. It was something Murbella called the "choreography of personal combat." She could not wait to test it in battle.

Like her mother, Janess plunged into her work with fervor. She had even adopted the surname of her father, calling herself Lieutenant Idaho. It sounded right to her, and to Murbella. Mother and daughter were becoming quite a formidable force. Some Sisters jokingly claimed that they didn't need an army—those two were dangerous enough on their own.

Wearing a satisfied look, the Mother Commander reviewed the troop formations.

Janess, too, was clearly proud of the trained fighters. "I will pit our Valkyries against any army the Honored Matres can raise against us."

"Yes, Janess, you will—and soon. First, we will conquer Buzzell."

4

The planet Dan was full of Face Dancers. Just by looking at the natives in the settlement near the ruined Atreides castle, Uxtal could sense them everywhere.

His skin crawled, but he didn't dare show fear. Maybe he could slip away, run to hide in the wilderness of the headlands, or pretend to be a simple fisherman or cliff-farmer.

But if he tried any of that, the Face Dancers would hunt him down and capture him, punish him. He didn't dare risk their wrath. So he meekly followed along.

Maybe Khrone would be so pleased to see the Baron child that he would simply free Uxtal, reward him for his service, and send him away. The Lost Tleilaxu researcher could cling to unrealistic hopes… He and young Vladimir were taken to temporary quarters in a hostelry on the outskirts of the village. The boy ghola complained that he wanted to throw rocks in the water and at the boats, or poke into the market stalls where sellers gutted the fish, but Uxtal made excuses, delaying the restless child while they waited in their chilly, rustic room. Vladimir began to ransack every cabinet and hiding place he could find. Uxtal clung to the knowledge that at least the Honored Matres were far away.

A nondescript man appeared at the door of their room. He looked like any other villager, but a rash of goose bumps stippled Uxtal's skin. "I have come to take the Baron ghola. We must test him."

He heard an odd sound, as of bones cracking and shifting. The man's face metamorphosed until the blank cadaverous face of Khrone stared back at him with ink-pit eyes.

"Y-yes," Uxtal said. "The boy is progressing quite nicely. Seven years old now. However, it would be very helpful to me if I knew what you want him for.

Very helpful."

Vladimir watched the Face Dancer with curious awe. He had never seen one of the shape-shifters revert to its blank state. "Great trick. Can you teach me to change my face like that?"

"No." Khrone turned back to the Tleilaxu. "When I originally asked you to grow this ghola, I did not know who he was. When I learned his identity, I still did not know if the Baron Harkonnen would do us any good, but I thought that he might. Now I have discovered a wonderful possibility." He took the boy's hand, and led him away. "Wait here, Uxtal."

So the diminutive researcher remained alone in his primitive room, wondering how much longer he would be permitted to live. In another situation he might have enjoyed the moment of peace, the quiet relaxation, but he was too afraid.

What if the Face Dancers found some flaw in the ghola? Why did they need him here on Dan? Would Khrone throw him back into the clutches of Matre Superior Hellica? The Face Dancers had left him among the Honored Matres for years.

Uxtal didn't know how much more he could stand. He couldn't believe Hellica had let him live, or that the withered old Ingva hadn't yet tried to bond him sexually. He closed his eyes and swallowed the moan in his throat. So many things could go wrong if he went back there… To calm himself, he began a traditional cleansing ritual. Standing next to an open window and facing the ocean, he dipped a white cloth into a bowl of water and washed his naked chest. It had been so long since he'd been able to adequately perform the personal bodily ablutions required by his religion.

People were always spying on him, intimidating him. After he finished, Uxtal meditated outside on a small wooden balcony that overlooked the fishing village. He prayed by mentally rearranging numbers and signs, searching for the truth in the holy patterns.

The door of the room burst open and the ghola child ran in, flushed and laughing. He carried a dripping knife and dodged among the rough furniture as if playing some sort of game. His clothes were covered in wet mud and blood.

Khrone followed the boy into the room at a more sedate pace, carrying a small parcel in his arms. He had reverted to his innocuous guise of a bland-featured man. Chuckling, young Vladimir called for Khrone to hurry.

Uxtal quickly intercepted the boy. "What are you doing with that knife?" He extended a hand to take the weapon away.

"I was playing with a baby slig. They have a little pen of them in the village, but none of them are big, like back home." He grinned. "I jumped in with them and stabbed a few." He wiped the blade on his own trousers and handed it to the Tleilaxu, who set it out of reach atop a tall wardrobe.

Khrone looked contemplatively at the bloodstains. "I am not averse to violence, but it must be directed violence. Constructive violence. This ghola has little self-control. He is in need of behavioral modifications."

Uxtal tried to deflect the conversation from the implied criticism. "Why did he grab a knife and jump into a slig pen?"

"He was influenced by our conversation. I was discussing our discovery with my comrades, and the boy drew inspiration from the object. He seems to have a fondness for knives."

"Matre Superior Hellica taught him that." Uxtal swallowed hard. "I have read his cellular history. The original Baron Harkonnen was—"

"I know everything about the original. He has excellent potential for what I have in mind now. Our plans have changed because of what we've discovered here on Dan."

Uxtal stared at the mysterious parcel in the Face Dancer's hands. "And what have you found?"

Though his gash-mouth did not smile, Khrone seemed very pleased. He began to unwrap the object. "Another solution to our crisis."

"Which crisis?"

"One you cannot understand."

Feeling chastised, Uxtal bit back further questions, and stared as Khrone revealed another knife, this one ornate and sealed inside a clear plaz container. The weapon had a jeweled handle with intricate designs carved into it; the blade itself bore etched letters and symbols from an ancient language, but the words were obscured by a thick smear of crimson. Blood, barely oxidized. He leaned closer. It still looked moist inside its preservative cover.

"This is an ancient weapon—thousands of years old—sealed inside a nullentropy field until today, hidden and protected over the centuries by a succession of religious fanatics."

"Is that blood?" Uxtal asked.

"I prefer to call it genetic material." Gingerly, the Face Dancer set the artifact on the table. "We discovered it in a long-sealed religious shrine here on Dan, watched over by remnants of the Fish Speakers, who have now joined the Cult of Sheeana. The dagger is stained with the blood of Paul Atreides."

"Muad'Dib! The father of the Prophet Himself, Leto II, the God Emperor."

"Yes, the messiah who led Fremen warriors in a great jihad. A Kwisatz Haderach. We need him."

"Because of the nullentropy field, the blood of Muad'Dib is still wet… fresh," Uxtal said, quivering in excitement. "Perfectly preserved."

"Ah, so you see where this is leading. There is hope for you yet. You may be useful after all."

"Yes, I am useful! Let me show you. But… but I need to know more about what you want."

At a hand gesture from their leader, two more Face Dancers entered the room, leading a wrung-out woman who wore a deep blue dress; her brown hair hung in stringy clumps. As she drew near, Uxtal noted the famous Atreides crest of long ago, a red braided hawk, on the left breast of her dress. When she saw the preserved dagger, the woman struggled against her captors. She didn't seem to care about the Face Dancers or anyone—only the knife.

Khrone prodded her. "Speak, Priestess. Tell this man the story of your holy knife so that he may understand."

She looked at Uxtal briefly, then turned her worshipful gaze back toward the dagger. "I am Ardath, formerly a Fish Speaker priestess, now servant of Sheeana. Long ago, the evil Count Hasimir Fenring attempted to assassinate the blessed Muad'Dib with this dagger. The weapon belonged to Emperor Shaddam IV, was given to Duke Leto Atreides as a gift, and then returned to Shaddam during his trial before the Landsraad. Later, Emperor Shaddam offered the dagger to Feyd-Rautha for his duel with Muad'Dib." Priestess Ardath seemed to be reciting often-rehearsed scripture.

"Later, during Muad'Dib's jihad, an exiled Hasimir Fenring—himself a failed Kwisatz Haderach—acquired the dagger. In a vile plot, he stabbed Muad'Dib deeply in the back. Some say that he died that day from the wound, but that Heaven sent him back among the living, for his work was not yet done. In a miracle he returned to us."

"And Muad'Dib's fanatics preserved the bloody knife as a religious artifact," Khrone finished impatiently. "It was taken to a shrine here on Caladan, home of House Atreides, where it remained hidden for all these years. You can already guess what we want you to do, Tleilaxu. Deactivate the nullentropy field, take cell samples—"

Ardath tore herself free of her guards and dropped to her knees in prayer, leaning toward the ancient relic. "Please, you cannot tamper with such a holy article."

At a gesture from Khrone, one of the Face Dancers grabbed her head and twisted it sharply, snapping her neck. He dropped her to the floor like a discarded doll. As they dragged the dead priestess away, Uxtal gave the female no more than a passing thought, since she was irrelevant. Instead, he was intrigued by the possibilities of the lovely, preserved dagger. Her prattling had been distracting anyway.

He came closer and picked up the sealed dagger with shaking hands, tilting it so that light glistened off the wet blade. The cells of Muad'Dib! The possibilities astounded him.

Khrone said, "Now you have another ghola project to work on, along with raising Baron Harkonnen. Back to Tleilax with you both—for as many years as it takes." More Face Dancers came into the room. "When the time is right, we will have a much more useful purpose for the Baron."

5

The first new armored vessels arrived from Richese exactly as Murbella had ordered, sixty-seven warships designed for space combat and troop transport, heavily loaded with weaponry. The Mother Commander had also paid the appropriate bribes in spice for a Guildship to transport them directly and unexpectedly to Buzzell. It was the first of what she hoped would be many conquests over the renegade Honored Matres.

The weapons shops of Richese, thrilled with the enormous order for armaments, worked overtime to create military equipment of every possible design and efficacy. When the outside threat did arrive in the Old Empire, they would not find the human race unprepared or undefended.

First, however, the restructured Sisterhood had to quash the destructive resistance here at home. We must clean the slate before the real Enemy arrives.

In deep consultation with Bellonda, Doria, and Janess, Murbella had chosen this first campaign carefully. Now that her Valkyries had eradicated the malcontents on Chapterhouse, the well-trained women were ready for another target. Buzzell was perfect, both for its strategic and its economic importance. The Honored Matres were haughty and overconfident, making their defenses vulnerable. Murbella intended to show them no mercy.

She did not know the precise disposition or distribution of Honored Matre defenses around Buzzell, but she could guess. Sitting inside their ships lurking within the hold of the great Guildship, all of her Valkyries were ready to be deployed.

As soon as the Guildship emerged from foldspace, its lower doors yawned open.

The women neither asked for nor received further instructions, since they knew what to do: Find priority targets and destroy them. Sixty-seven vessels, all equipped with cutting-edge weapons technology, poured out and opened fire with projectiles and targeted explosives that began shredding the fifteen large Honored Matre frigates stationed in orbit. The Honored Matres had no time to react—and barely enough time to bellow their outrage over the commsystems. In ten minutes, the bombardment turned every single vessel into lifeless, floating scrap metal. Buzzell was now undefended.

"Mother Commander! A dozen unaligned ships are flying away from the atmosphere. A different design… they don't appear to be combat craft."

"Smugglers," Murbella said. "Soostones are valuable, so there will always be smugglers."

"Shall we destroy them, Mother Commander? Or seize their cargoes?"

"Neither." She watched the tiny ships flitting away from the ocean world. If the smugglers had proved to be a significant drain on the soostone wealth, the Honored Matres would never have let them survive. "We have a more important target down there. We'll oust the Honored Matres and negotiate with the smugglers afterward."

She led the warships to their formal conquest of the few specks of habitable land on the vast, fertile ocean.

Buzzell had long been used as a Bene Gesserit punishment planet where the Sisterhood discarded those who had disappointed them, women who had failed the ancient order in some manner. The ocean world wasn't much to look at, but the rich, deep sea was home to shelled creatures, called cholisters, that produced elegant gems.

Soostones. Noble women flaunted them; collectors and artisans paid inflated prices for them.

Like Rakis, she thought. Ironic, that the worst places produce the items of greatest value.

The Honored Matres' inexorable search for wealth had drawn their attentions to Buzzell years ago. After the whores overran the islands on the vast oceans, they had killed most of the disgraced Bene Gesserit Sisters and forced the survivors to harvest soostones for them.

Now, assisted by orbital surveillance, Murbella easily determined which were the main inhabited landmasses barely poking above the waves. The New Sisterhood would recapture the nerve centers of soostone activity from the Honored Matres. Soon, Buzzell would have different leaders.

The Richesian battle craft landed around the primary soostone-processing encampment. Such a great number of vessels overwhelmed the tiny landing area and most were forced to rely on inflatable pontoons, raft piers, and simple suspensor fields on the water. Ships encircled the rocky island like a noose.

As it turned out, apart from the frigates in orbit, barely more than a hundred of the whores held the facilities of Buzzell in their iron grip. When the Valkyries arrived, the Honored Matres who lived on this island in the finest (though still spartan) buildings, rushed out, fully armed. Though they fought viciously, the women were greatly outnumbered and outmatched. Murbella's fighters easily assassinated half of them before the rest capitulated. The losses were expected.

The Mother Commander strode out into the biting, salty air to begin surveying the sparse world she had just conquered.

When the fighters rounded up the surviving Honored Matres, Murbella discovered nine women who clearly did not belong among them, downtrodden yet proud in tattered black robes. Bene Gesserit. Only nine! Buzzell had been a punishment planet for well over a hundred Sisters… and only nine had survived the whores.

Murbella stalked back and forth, looking at the gathered women. Her Valkyries stood in formation behind her, their black singlesuit uniforms embellished with sharp black spikes, used as ornamentation and as weapons. The Honored Matres looked defiant, murderous—exactly as Murbella expected. The captive Sisters averted their eyes, having spent so many years in the yoke of oppressive mistresses.

"I am your new commander. Who among you claimed to lead these women?" She swept a whipsaw gaze across them. "Who will be my underling here?"

"We are not underlings," one sinewy Honored Matre sneered, spoiling for a fight. "We don't know you, nor do we recognize your authority. You act like an Honored Matre, but you have the smell of witches about you. I don't think you are either."

So Murbella killed her.

The Honored Matre leader had persecuted Sisters here for years. Her kicks and blows were swift, but insufficient in the face of Murbella's combined training. With a broken neck, snapped ribs, and blood oozing from burst eardrums, the arrogant woman dropped dead to the black stones of the reef settlement.

Murbella never broke a sweat. She turned to the others. "Now, who speaks for you? Who will be my first underling?"

One of the other Honored Matres stepped forward. "I am Matre Skira. Ask your questions of me."

"I will know about the soostones and your operations here. We need to know how to extract profits from Buzzell."

"The soostones are ours," Skira said. "This planet is—"

Murbella dealt her a blow across the chin so swiftly that it sent the woman reeling backward before she could raise a hand to defend herself. Looming over her like a bird of prey, Murbella said, "I ask again: Explain the soostone operations to me."

One of the downtrodden Bene Gesserits broke from her line. A middle-aged woman with ash-blonde hair, she had a worn face that must once have been strikingly beautiful. "I can explain it to you."

Skira scuttled like a crab onto her elbows trying to get to her feet. "Don't listen to that cow. She's a prisoner, fit for beating and nothing else.

"I am called Corysta," the blonde said, ignoring Skira. Murbella nodded. "I am Mother Commander of the New Sisterhood. Mother Superior Odrade herself chose me as her successor before she was killed in the Battle of Junction. I have unified Bene Gesserits and Honored Matres to stand against our common, deadly Enemy." She nudged Skira with her foot. "Only a few renegade Honored Matre enclaves such as this remain. We will either assimilate them or grind them to dust."

"Honored Matres are not so easily defeated," Skira insisted.

Murbella looked down her nose at the woman on the ground. "You were." She focused on Corysta. "You are a Reverend Mother?"

"I am, but I was exiled here for the crime of love."

"Love!" The wiry Skira spit the word out, as if expecting agreement from her conqueror. She began to talk about Corysta in a derisive, hard-edged voice, calling her a baby stealer and a criminal to both the Bene Gesserits and the Honored Matres.

Murbella gave the Sister a quick, appraising glance. "Is that true? Are you a notorious stealer of babies?" Corysta kept her eyes averted. "I could not steal what was already mine. No, I was the victim of theft. I nurtured both children out of love, when no one else would."

Murbella made up her mind on the spot, knowing she had to learn quickly. "In the interests of speed and efficiency, I will Share with you." That way, she could gather all the information from Corysta in an instant.

The other woman hesitated only for a moment, then bowed her head and leaned forward so that Murbella could touch her, brow to brow, mind to mind. In a flood, the Mother Commander drew in everything she needed to know about Buzzell and far more than she had wanted to learn about Corysta.

All of the other woman's experiences, her daily life, her knowledge, her painful memories and intense loyalties to the Sisterhood, became part of Murbella, as if she had lived them herself.

In the interior vista, she saw through Corysta's eyes as she worked alongside other slaves at a sorting and cleaning table on a dock near the edge of the rugged reef. A breeze carried the biting odors of the sea to her nostrils. The morning sky was typically dreary and overcast. White gulls hopped along the fauxwood dock, looking for crustacean fragments and tiny morsels of meat that might fall off during the processing operations.

A scaly, intimidating Phibian overseer walked up and down the sorting line, his body reeking of rotted fish. He watched the work and periodically checked to make certain that none of the Bene Gesserit slaves had stolen anything.

Corysta wondered where she could possibly go if she did try to steal a soostone fragment.

She had been in exile on Buzzell for almost two decades, first cast out by the Sisterhood as a young woman, then trapped as a slave to the whores from the Scattering. Corysta had been sentenced to Buzzell for what the Bene Gesserits called a "crime of humanity." She had been ordered to breed with a spoiled, petulant nobleman who pranced about in a different outfit every time she saw him. Following the orders of her Breeding Mistresses, Corysta had seduced the fop—whom she could not imagine loving—and had manipulated her internal chemistry to ensure that the resulting child would be a daughter.

From the moment of conception, the daughter had been destined for the Bene Gesserit order. Corysta had known that intellectually, but not in her heart.

As the child grew in her womb, Corysta began to have misgivings, especially when the baby started to move and kick. Alone with herself, she got to know her daughter before she was born and began to imagine raising the girl as her own, being a traditional mother to her, a practice that was forbidden in the Sisterhood. In spite of the strictness of the various breeding programs, there had to be room for exceptions, for some degree of love. Each day, Corysta talked soothingly to the baby in her womb, uttering special blessings.

Gradually, she began to think about escaping from her oppressive obligations.

One night as she sang mournfully to her unborn child, Corysta made the fateful decision to keep her baby. She would not turn the little girl over to the Breeding Mistresses, as ordered. Corysta fled into seclusion, giving birth alone in an unlit shelter, like an animal. A stern Breeding Mistress named Monaya discovered where she was and stormed in, accompanied by a black-robed squadron of enforcers. After knowing only a few hours of her mother's love, the newborn daughter was taken away, and Corysta never saw her again. She hardly remembered the subsequent journey to Buzzell, where she was abandoned with the other discarded Sisters to remain for the rest of her life in the "penance program." During all the years Corysta spent here on patches of black land no larger than a prison yard, surrounded by oceans, she never stopped thinking about her lost daughter.

Then the Honored Matres had swept in like savage carrion birds, slaughtering thousands of Bene Gesserit exiles on Buzzell. Only a handful of Sisters were spared to be put to work as slaves.

Whenever the rank iodine smell announced the presence of the Phibian overseers, Corysta worked faster to sort the precious stones by color and size. Behind her, the damp amphibious man moved on, breathing heavily from gills that worked to suck oxygen from air instead of seawater. Fearing punishment, Corysta never looked at the Phibian.

In her first year of captivity she fumed, wishing she could find some way to get her child back. As time passed, she lost all hope of that and began to accept her circumstances. For years she lived from moment to moment, only rarely picking at the mistakes of her past like someone worrying at a loose tooth. The deep waters of Buzzell became the limits of her universe.

She and her fellow survivors did not actually dive for the deep water stones; Phibians did that. Genetically modified hybrids created out in the Scattering, the human-amphibian creatures had bullet-shaped heads, lean and streamlined bodies, and slick green skin that shone with oily iridescence. Corysta was fascinated by them, and feared them.

Then, years ago, Corysta had rescued an abandoned Phibian baby from the sea, concealing and tending it in her simple hut for months. She nurtured her "Sea Child" back to health, but then, in a cruel echo of her earlier experience, Honored Matres had snatched the hybrid baby from her.

Having heard of her previous experience, the whores taunted Corysta, calling her "the woman who lost two babies." They openly ridiculed her, while her fellow exiled Sisters quietly admired her… Shaken, Murbella withdrew from contact with the disgraced Sister, to find that only a moment had passed. In front of her, Corysta blinked back at her in amazement at the flood of news and information. Sharing went both ways, and now the punished Bene Gesserit woman knew everything the Mother Commander knew. It was a gamble Murbella had been willing to make.

Considering how swiftly her Valkyries had succeeded in securing all vulnerable points, Murbella was certain that the New Sisterhood could easily run the operations here. She would leave a defensive force in orbit, convert or kill the remaining Honored Matres, and get back to work. She glanced around for Phibian guards, but they had all vanished into the deep water with the arrival of the Valkyries. They would return. Sharing with Corysta had told her all she needed to know.

"Reverend Mother Corysta, I appoint you overseer of the Sisterhood's soostone operations. I know that you are aware of many flaws, as well as the ways the work process could be improved."

The woman nodded, her eyes shining with pride that Murbella had entrusted her with these new responsibilities. Red-faced with rage, Matre Skira was barely able to control herself.

"If any other Honored Matres prove to be a problem, you have my permission to execute them."

TWO DAYS LATER, satisfied with the changes under way and ready to return to Chapterhouse, Murbella walked back through the weathered settlement at dusk.

She passed between locked soostone holding sheds and a hodgepodge of living quarters and administrative buildings. Glowglobes surged on inside the buildings, as night swiftly fell under a coppery orange blanket of sunset.

Four Honored Matres emerged from the deep shadows of an equipment shed and the doorway of a dark building. Though they crept forward, clearly intending to be stealthy, Murbella spotted them immediately. Their violent intent rose from them like noxious fumes.

Tingling and ready for a fight, she regarded them with disdain. The four women stalked forward, confident in their numbers, though Honored Matres rarely managed to fight efficiently as a team. Combat with several of them would simply be a brawl.

The Honored Matres rushed her. In a blur of motion, Murbella kicked and spun repeatedly, cutting through all four of them. A choreographed synthesis of Bene Gesserit combat methods and Honored Matre fighting tricks, overlaid with a pattern of Duncan's Swordmaster techniques—any one of her Valkyries could have done the same.

In less than a minute, the attackers lay dead. Another group of angry Honored Matres boiled out of the equipment sheds. Murbella prepared for a grander fight and laughed aloud. She could feel her body singing with the call of combat. "Will you make me kill all of you? Or should I leave one alive as a witness, to discourage further nonsense? Who else will try?"

Two more did, and two more died. Confused, the rest of the Honored Matres hung back. To be sure that her message had sunk in, Murbella taunted them. "Who else will face me?" She pointed to the fallen bodies. "These six have learned the lesson."

No one accepted the challenge.