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hiding in the skirts of the desert . . . and some tame smugglers bound to the planet almost as tightly as the native labor pool.
    â€œAnd the Great Houses will know that the Baron has destroyed the Atreides,” Piter said. “They will know.”
    â€œThey will know,” the Baron breathed.
    â€œLoveliest of all,” Piter said, “is that the Duke will know, too. He knows now. He can already feel the trap.”
    â€œIt’s true the Duke knows,” the Baron said, and his voice held a note of sadness. “He could not help but know . . . more’s the pity.”
    The Baron moved out and away from the globe of Arrakis. As he emerged from the shadows, his figure took on dimension—grossly and immensely fat. And with subtle bulges beneath folds of his dark robes to reveal that all this fat was sustained partly by portable suspensors harnessed to his flesh. He might weigh two hundred Standard kilos in actuality, but his feet would carry no more than fifty of them.
    â€œI am hungry,” the Baron rumbled, and he rubbed his protruding lips with a beringed hand, stared down at Feyd-Rautha through fat-enfolded eyes. “Send for food, my darling. We will eat before we retire.”

Thus spoke St. Alia-of-the-Knife: “The Reverend Mother must combine the seductive wiles of a courtesan with the untouchable majesty of a virgin goddess, holding these attributes in tension so long as the powers of her youth endure. For when youth and beauty have gone, she will find that the place-between, once occupied by tension, has become a well-spring of cunning and resourcefulness.”
    â€”from “Muad’Dib, Family Commentaries” by the Princess Irulan
    Â 
    â€œWELL, JESSICA, what have you to say for yourself?” asked the Reverend Mother.
    It was near sunset at Castle Caladan on the day of Paul’s ordeal. The two women were alone in Jessica’s morning room while Paul waited in the adjoining soundproofed Meditation Chamber.
    Jessica stood facing the south windows. She saw and yet did not see the evening’s banked colors across meadow and river. She heard and yet did not hear the Reverend Mother’s question.
    There had been another ordeal once—so many years ago. A skinny girl with hair the color of bronze, her body tortured by the winds of puberty, had entered the study of the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam, Proctor Superior of the Bene Gesserit school on Wallach IX. Jessica looked down at her right hand, flexed the fingers, remembering the pain, the terror, the anger.
    â€œPoor Paul,” she whispered.
    â€œI asked you a question, Jessica!” The old woman’s voice was snappish, demanding.
    â€œWhat? Oh. . . .” Jessica tore her attention away from the past, faced the Reverend Mother, who sat with back to the stone wall between the two west windows. “What do you want me to say?”
    â€œWhat do I want you to say? What do I want you to say?” The old voice carried a tone of cruel mimicry.
    â€œSo I had a son!” Jessica flared. And she knew she was being goaded into this anger deliberately.
    â€œYou were told to bear only daughters to the Atreides.”
    â€œIt meant so much to him,” Jessica pleaded.
    â€œAnd you in your pride thought you could produce the Kwisatz Haderach!”
    Jessica lifted her chin. “I sensed the possibility.”
    â€œYou thought only of your Duke’s desire for a son,” the old woman snapped. “And his desires don’t figure in this. An Atreides daughter could’ve been wed to a Harkonnen heir and sealed the breach. You’ve hopelessly complicated matters. We may lose both bloodlines now.”
    â€œYou’re not infallible,” Jessica said. She braved the steady stare from the old eyes.
    Presently, the old woman muttered: “What’s done is done.”
    â€œI vowed never to regret my decision,” Jessica said.
    â€œHow noble,” the