The battle was a long, difficult moment of insanity for him, though his fellow soldiers came to regard him as a Blessed One, a fanatic of fanatics. By the time the fighting ended, the survivors glanced in his direction with awe, as if they believed he was possessed by a holy spirit.

In the smoldering aftermath, he heard wailing voices call, "Muad'Dib, save me! Muad'Dib!" With a start, Paul wondered if someone had recognized him, then realized that the wounded were merely invoking any help they could imagine.

No wonder a hardened Gurney gave no more than lukewarm responses when asked to lead more and more offensives. Planets fell, one after another, and now Paul became aware of the truly heavy toll he had placed on his friend. Affable Gurney, the troubadour warrior whose talent with a baliset was as well known as his skill with a sword. He had made the man an earl of Caladan, then denied him any time to settle there and make a real life. Gurney, I am sorry. And you did not complain for a moment. am sorry. And you did not complain for a moment.

As far as he knew, Stilgar still felt that he belonged with his Fremen warriors, but Paul made up his mind to find a new, planetbound a.s.signment for Gurney, a role that might give him a sense of accomplishment, something other than... this. He deserved better.

Paul was covered with blood, and his borrowed uniform was torn, but he had only superficial cuts and sc.r.a.pes. Suk doctors and scavengers combed the battlefield, tending the injured and harvesting the dead. He saw groups of Tleilaxu moving furtively from one fallen warrior to another, taking the most time with the greatest of the dead fighters. The Tleilaxu had always served as handlers of the dead, but these men seemed to be collecting samples....

Simply one more horror among all the others.

Paul looked up with eyes that were blue-within-blue from spice addiction, but dry of tears. He saw a shaven-headed man, formerly a Fremen but now a priest, a member of the Qizara. The priest seemed to be experiencing a state of rapture. He raised his hands over the clouds of dust and curls of smoke, absorbing the horror of the battlefield that still throbbed in the air. He looked directly at Paul, but did not recognize him. With Paul's haunted eyes and blood-spattered face, and covered from head to foot with the filth of battle, he wondered if even Chani would know who he was.

"You are blessed by G.o.d, protected so that you can continue our holy work," the priest said to him. He swept his gaze slowly across the battlefield, and a smile appeared on his lips. "Ehknot, behold the invincibility of Muad'Dib."

Paul did behold, but did not see what the priest saw. And at the moment, no matter what the priest said, he did not feel at all invincible.

When negotiating the dangerous waters of the Imperium, it is wise to calculate the odds of various outcomes that might follow important decisions. This is art, not science, but at the most basic level it is a methodical process, and a matter of balance.

-Acolyte's Manual of the Bene Gesserit

Lady Margot Fenring had not been to the Bene Gesserit home-world in some time, but it had not changed. Sienna tiles still covered the roofs of the sprawling Mother School complex, which surrounded the main buildings that dated back thousands of years. To the Sisterhood, Wallach IX was a ship of constancy floating in a vast and changing cosmic sea.

For all their intense study of human nature and society, the Sisterhood was an extremely conservative organization. "Adapt or die" was a primary Bene Gesserit axiom, though they seemed to have forgotten how to follow it. Margot had gradually come to realize this. As far as she was concerned, they were not her superiors. The unparalleled disaster of Paul Atreides and the almost complete loss of Bene Gesserit political power had eroded her respect for them.

She and her husband had spent years in isolation among the Tleilaxu, raising Marie, developing an overall plan. And now the Mother Superior had summoned her with orders to bring her daughter in "for inspection."

Since childhood, Lady Margot had been trained to obey the commands of her superiors - commands that had required her to bear the child in the first place - but the Sisterhood might not get the answers they antic.i.p.ated. Margot came to Wallach IX on her own terms.

She hoped the Sisterhood had no additional breeding plans for her. Yes, Lady Margot looked considerably younger than her years, and her willowy beauty had been enhanced by careful and regular consumption of melange and a regimen of prana-bindu exercises. With good fortune, her seductive appearance and reproductive functions would last for several more decades... and Hasimir was so understanding.

But little Marie should be her culminating achievement. The Sisterhood had to be made to see that.

Margot had commanded the nanny Tonia Obregah-Xo to remain behind in Thalidei, though the woman had obviously expected to accompany them to Wallach IX. Tonia sent regular reports to the Mother School, using clandestine methods that were only too familiar to Margot herself. Once, Lady Margot had intercepted a message to the Sisterhood and had surrept.i.tiously added her own postscript. That had caused rancor among the Bene Gesserits and a change in secret reporting procedures, but Margot had wanted to let them know that she was her own woman, and that she served at her her pleasure, not theirs. pleasure, not theirs.

Nevertheless, she had agreed to make the journey and let the Reverend Mothers "inspect" five-year-old Marie all they wanted, but the Sisterhood would not control her destiny. Too much was at stake.

Now, she and Count Fenring sat on a garden bench with the girl between them. All of them waiting. Waiting. An obvious and childish game the Sisters were playing. Behind them was the stylized black quartz statue of a kneeling woman: Raquella Berto-Anirul, the founder of the ancient school. Thick rain clouds hung over the school, and the temperature was cool, though not uncomfortable. The courtyard sheltered them from the wind.

Finally, Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam approached with a group of five Sisters, her bird-bright gaze intent on little Marie.

Lady Margot stood. "I have brought my daughter as requested, Reverend Mother." An automatic response. automatic response.

Mohiam frowned pointedly at Count Fenring. "We do not often allow males to enter the grounds of the Mother School."

"Your hospitality is, ahh, noted." He smiled, keeping a protective hand on the little girl's shoulder. The Bene Gesserits knew full well that Count Hasimir Fenring was a deadly a.s.sa.s.sin and master spy himself, so Lady Margot had no doubt that her husband's presence here caused great consternation among their order.

Hasimir was himself a failed Kwisatz Haderach, a genetic eunuch and a dead end near the finish line of the millennia-long breeding program. But the actual actual Kwisatz Haderach, Paul Atreides, had backfired on them, with consequences too disastrous to imagine. From this point on, with Marie's amazing potential, Count Fenring and Lady Margot were perfectly capable of developing and implementing their own dynastic schemes. Kwisatz Haderach, Paul Atreides, had backfired on them, with consequences too disastrous to imagine. From this point on, with Marie's amazing potential, Count Fenring and Lady Margot were perfectly capable of developing and implementing their own dynastic schemes.

Both she and her husband had worked for inept superiors. The failures of Shaddam Corrino IV were not unlike those of the Sisterhood. Through a strange and cruel twist of fate, two immense and foolish courses of action had merged into one another to amplify a horrible result. The human race would be a long time recovering from Muad'Dib.

Reverend Mother Mohiam bent forward, turning her attention to the young girl. "So this is the child." Reaching out, the old woman pa.s.sed a hand through the child's light blonde hair. "I see you have your mother's lovely features."

She's also noticed a similarity to Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen, Margot thought. Margot thought.

"And such milky smooth skin." Mohiam rubbed one of the girl's forearms. Marie endured the attention in silence. "Like your mother's."

Mohiam's hand went quickly into a pocket of her robe, surrept.i.tiously depositing the hair and skin samples she had just taken. It was a matter of procedure, of constant observation and doc.u.mentation, more information for the breeding files, data points with dates and places and names on them.

"And the child's training regimen?" Mohiam looked at Margot.

"A combination of my knowledge and my husband's, as well as instructions from her Bene Gesserit nanny. Surely Tonia has sent you detailed reports?"

Mohiam ignored the latter comment. "Good. We are glad you brought her here so that her education can continue properly. We will keep her, of course."

"I am afraid that will, ahhh, not be possible," her husband said, his voice as taut as a garrote.

Mohiam was taken aback. The Sisters with her stared at him. "That is not your decision."

Smiling prettily, Margot said, "We did not bring Marie to leave her at the Mother School. She does quite well with us."

"Ahh, quite well," Fenring added.

Margot noted the tension in the air, saw furtive shapes moving behind windows, Sisters hurrying through the porticos. While these five Sisters were watching the little girl most closely, others had been a.s.signed to observe Count Fenring and Margot. Subtle body movements of the three subjects would be recorded and a.n.a.lyzed in the most minute detail. More data points. Somewhere back there lurked the Mother Superior herself.

"This sudden intractability - has Muad'Dib enlisted you as an ally?" When Mohiam asked this, her robed companions moved closer like a small flock of black birds, as if to protect the old woman from attack.

Count Fenring laughed, but said nothing; little Marie laughed in a similar tenor.

"We do not mock you, Reverend Mother," Margot said. "My family is merely amused at your suggestion that we might be cooperating with the man who overthrew Shaddam Corrino. You all know that my Hasimir considered the former Emperor quite a close friend." After exchanging glances with the Count, she added, "Rather, we came in response to your summons, with an interesting proposal."

Little Marie piped up, "The Imperium has the head of a monster, and it must be decapitated."

The Sisters were visibly startled by such bold talk from the child. "Muad'Dib is is a monster," Lady Margot said. "Your own Kwisatz Haderach is completely out of control, and you are at fault. Your plans failed to account for the damage he's inflicted upon the universe. We must make alternative plans to take care of him." a monster," Lady Margot said. "Your own Kwisatz Haderach is completely out of control, and you are at fault. Your plans failed to account for the damage he's inflicted upon the universe. We must make alternative plans to take care of him."

Fenring leaned forward on the stone bench. "Is anyone more hated than the Emperor Paul-Muad'Dib, hmmm?"

Mohiam did not answer, but Lady Margot knew that the old woman loathed Paul more than most.

"Perhaps Marie can sit on the throne instead," Margot said. "Is there anyone better bred? Better suited?"

The old Reverend Mother snapped backward. Bene Gesserits did not seize power so openly. "They will never accept a child - and a girl at that!"

"After Muad'Dib, they will be inclined to accept many things, so long as he is gone," Fenring said.

The old woman paced, ignoring the other four Sisters, ignoring Marie. The girl stood perfectly still, watching intently, listening to everything. "You are an intriguing combination of motives and methods, Margot. Intriguing, indeed. You defy our ways and jab at our mistakes, while trying to involve us in a dangerous plot."

"The Sisterhood must adapt and survive. It is a simple, rational conclusion. Through my husband's experience and unique abilities, he has worked out a scenario that benefits all of us."

Fenring bobbed his head. "There are ways we can get close to Muad'Dib, ways to make him let his guard down."

Mohiam's dark eyes regarded the Count with new interest. "True enough, there is a need to adapt. There is also a need for balance - that too, is one of our precepts. I would hear your proposal, but I insist that the girl be as prepared as possible. As part of any agreement, the girl must remain here for training in the Mother School."

"Out of the question." Margot put an arm around her daughter, and the child snuggled against her.

Fenring also put an arm around the little girl. "The old ways of the Sisterhood have failed in spectacular fashion, hmmm? Now let us try ours."

"You would risk Marie's life in this enterprise?" Mohiam asked.

Lady Margot smiled. "Hardly. Our plan is perfect, as is our method of escape afterward."

The Reverend Mother's eyes flashed. "And the details?"

"The details will be an artistic performance," Margot said. "Since you are not involved, you will learn them after the fact."

Glancing up at a shadowy shape standing in a window overlooking the courtyard, Mohiam said, "Very well. We will watch with interest."

Home is more than a mere location. Home is where, more than anyplace else, one wishes to be. Home is certainly not this horrible planet that I never wanted to see again.

-GURNEY HALLECK, dispatch to Lady Jessica on Caladan

When he returned to Arrakis, weary and unsettled from the most recent battles against Thorvald's insurgents, Gurney just wanted to rest in his dusty quarters. But he had barely managed to remove his nose plugs and unfasten his cloak before a pompous Qizarate amba.s.sador arrived at his doorway wearing c.u.mbersome diplomatic garments instead of a traditional stillsuit. Frowning, Gurney took the decree from the functionary, broke the seal, and read it, not caring that the man might look on.

The announcement took his breath away. "Why in the Seven h.e.l.ls would Paul do that?"

The Emperor had officially given Gurney Halleck the Barony of Giedi Prime. The lumpy, scarred man stood still, breathing quickly through flared nostrils, realizing that Paul probably intended for this to be a reward, shielding him from further horrors of the Jihad by sending him back to the planet of his childhood, just as Paul himself had visited Caladan. But though Giedi Prime had surrendered to Paul almost immediately after the fall of House Harkonnen, for Gurney the place was still a battlefield - a battlefield of the mind, a battlefield of harsh memories.

Gurney shooed the functionary away and reread the decree, reflexively crumpling the spice paper, then straightening the doc.u.ment again. Paul had added a quiet, more personal note. "You can heal it, my loyal friend. It will take thousands of years before anyone might consider Giedi Prime a beautiful place. At the very least, try to change it from a festering wound to a scar. Do it for me, Gurney."

Sighing, Gurney said to himself, "I serve the Atreides." And he meant it. He would face his past, and use his best abilities to free the people of Giedi Prime from many generations of Harkonnen repression and imposed darkness. It would not be a simple task.

He already had an earldom on Caladan, but Jessica had taken the t.i.tle of d.u.c.h.ess, and the people there loved her. He didn't want to take anything away from her. But... Giedi Prime? Paul was doing him no favors.

Gurney had often fantasized that after a lifetime of fighting he would retire to the country on a well-earned estate with a beautiful woman and a house full of rambunctious children. Somehow, though, he did not see that in his future.

Do it for me, Gurney, Paul had said.

WHEN HE ARRIVED at Giedi Prime, Gurney Halleck received a modest hero's welcome, though the decidedly subdued population did not know what to make of him. He was the newly named Baron - another painfully unsettling honor. Paul-Muad'Dib had freed this planet from the Harkonnen boot heel, but the people did not know how to rejoice. They were not accustomed to loving their leaders. Even with the yoke of repression removed, no one raised a voice to celebrate.

Seeing them crowded in Harko City reminded Gurney of the magnitude of the challenge he faced, and he felt hollow in his chest. Noting the wan faces, pale complexions, and washed-out demeanors, he remembered seeing the same expressions on the faces of his parents and on his poor sister Bheth, who was eventually raped and murdered, an offhand casualty of Beast Rabban's cruelty.

Gurney would try to summon the energy and compa.s.sion to inspire these people, to have them turn their world around, replant it, reenergize it. But he wasn't sure they had the heart for it. "You are free now!" Simply telling that to a broken and weary populace did not undo generations of damage. The idea was a good one, in a logical sense, but did Paul honestly believe that a gift of freedom and self-determination would change the psyche of an entire planet?

Yet that was Gurney's new mission, and he intended to accomplish it - for Paul.

With his own men, mostly drawn from Caladan, Gurney took residence in the city of Barony, the former seat of Harkonnen government. He had a lot of fixing and political housecleaning to do. The gigantic mansion had blocky walls and imposing columns, everything based on squares and angles instead of soft curves. Gurney felt wrong. wrong. He did not belong here. Even devastated Salusa Secundus, where he'd once lived among smugglers, was somehow a purer place. At least it did not have a Harkonnen stink about it. He did not belong here. Even devastated Salusa Secundus, where he'd once lived among smugglers, was somehow a purer place. At least it did not have a Harkonnen stink about it.

The giant building made him uncomfortable, as if he might find something dangerous around every corner, and he didn't trust that the Harkonnens had not left unpleasant surprises for any new and unwelcome occupants.

He ordered the great home of Baron Harkonnen to be searched, room by room, every chamber unlocked and scanned. His teams discovered numerous rooms that had obviously been used for torture, b.o.o.by-trapped chambers that held nothing of obvious value, and several sealed vaults filled with solari coins, preserved melange, and incalculably expensive gems. The fact that none of these rooms had been looted, or even opened, in the five years since the fall of House Harkonnen demonstrated just how much fear the Baron must have inspired.

Gurney had all the treasures liquidated and the profits distributed to the people in the form of public works, as a gesture of goodwill.

He called his government together and summoned the administrators who had been left in de facto control of Giedi Prime for five years since Baron Harkonnen's death. In an empire so vast and sprawling, no ruler, not even Muad'Dib, could meticulously manage every planet.

The old Harkonnen administrators had been conspicuously absent since Gurney's arrival on Giedi Prime, but they could no longer avoid him. Having learned of Gurney's past here, they tried not to meet his gaze; some of them seemed fixated on his inkvine scar; others became simpering toadies trying to ooze their way into his good graces in order to keep their positions. Gurney didn't much care for any of them; their leadership might have been effective under the old regime, but the harsh methods were ingrained. Just as the people didn't know how to be free, these administrators did not understand what it meant to be compa.s.sionate. He would have to apply all his force of will to ensure that momentum did not drag Giedi Prime back to its former dark and repressive ways.

He needed to make his new philosophy clear to this group of cautious and nervous administrators. He had put this off long enough. "I need to see familiar places. I will go to the slave pits, and to my old village of Dmitri. And you will accompany me."

Though Gurney had showed very little emotion toward the former leaders, he was sure they expected him to take out his ire on them, and Gurney did not disabuse them of that notion.

First, he made a visit of state to the slave pits where he had been sentenced because he'd dared to sing songs that mocked the Baron. Here, he had mined and processed absurdly expensive blue obsidian, and Rabban had struck him with his inkvine whip. Here, he had been tied down and forced to watch in helpless horror as Rabban and his men s.e.xually a.s.saulted poor Bheth, then strangled her to death. Here, Gurney had found a way to escape by stowing away aboard a cargo ship that carried a load of blue obsidian bound for Duke Leto Atreides.

Looking around the site, Gurney turned white with anger. How little had changed in all the years! He would much rather have faced rebel fanatics than confront the searing memories inspired by this sight. But if he did not heal these places, then no one would.

His voice was quiet, but it may as well have been a shout. "I order these slave pits shut down immediately. Free these people and let them make their own lives. I hereby strip the slave masters of their authority."

"My Lord Halleck, you will disrupt everything! Our entire economy -"

"I don't give a d.a.m.n. Let the slave masters work among the other people as equals." His lips curled in a small smile. "Then we'll see how well they they survive." survive."

Deciding to get the worst over with, he traveled next to the shadow of Mount Ebony and the cl.u.s.ter of pleasure houses that had once serviced the Harkonnen troops. Giedi Prime had many such establishments, but he intended to go to a specific one.

Gurney felt nauseated when he arrived at the doorstep. Memories of one night long ago howled inside his head. The administrators accompanying him were clearly frightened by his expression. "Who is the proprietor that runs these houses?" He remembered an old man who had wired himself into a chair, keeping careful business records but paying no attention to what went on behind the doors of his establishment.

"Rulien Scheck has done an efficient job of managing in the absence of other leadership, my Lord Halleck. He has worked here for years, decades probably."

"Bring him to me. Now."

The old man came out, nearly stumbling, yet trying to smile as though proud of what he had accomplished. Prosthetic lines ran down his legs, keeping him from being otherwise crippled, but at least he was free from his chair now. A paunch hung over his waist, and soft rounded b.u.t.tocks showed that he ate too well and sat down too much. His gray hair was heavy and oiled, as if he considered it to be stylish. Gurney recognized him immediately, but Rulien Scheck showed no sign that he remembered one particular desperate brother from one particular night....

"I am honored that Giedi Prime's new Lord would come to see my humble establishment. All of my financial records are open to you, sir. I run a clean and honest business, with the most beautiful women. I have banked the expected share of profits in a sealed account, formerly designated to the Harkonnens and now available to you. You will find no evidence of impropriety, I promise you that, my Lord." He bowed.

"This very house is evidence of impropriety." Gurney pushed his way inside, but needed to see very little. He remembered the rooms, the pallets, the stains on the walls, the endless lines of sweaty Harkonnen soldiers who had come here seeking pleasure slaves like his sister Bheth, taking more delight in inflicting abuse on the unfortunate women than in the s.e.x itself. By cauterizing her larynx, they had prevented Bheth even from screaming.

He closed his eyes and did not turn to face the old proprietor. "I want this man garroted."

The administrators remained silent. Scheck squawked, began to argue, and Gurney pointed a blunt finger at him. "Be thankful that I do not first command a hundred soldiers to sodomize you - some of them with spiked clubs. But even though that is what you deserve, I am not a Harkonnen. Your death will be swift enough."