escalating tensions. “Reverend Mother, I am ready to depart for Kaitain, if you will allow me to say my farewells to the Duke.”
The men in the room hesitated, startled into an uncomfortable silence. Mohiam looked at her, making it clear that she had known Jessica was eavesdropping all along. “Yes, child, it is time.”
* * *
Watching the dwindling glow from the shuttle engines, Duke Leto Atreides stood in the spaceport below, surrounded by Gurney, Thufir, Rhombur, and Duncan… four men who would have given their lives for him, if he asked it.
He felt empty and alone, and thought of all the things he wished he’d had the courage to say to Jessica. But he had lost his chance, and would regret it until they were in each other’s arms again.
One cannot hide from history… or from human nature.
— Bene Gesserit Azhar Book
The ancient rock quarry was a deep bowl with high cliff walls of chopped stone. In centuries past, blocks of variegated marble had been removed to build new structures for the Mother School.
Stern and professional, Sister Cristane led the three Richesian inventors to the bottom of the quarry. Her dark hair cropped short, her face showing more angles than feminine softness, she did not appear to notice the cold breezes as she took the trio of off-world scientists into a suspensorpod that dropped like a diving bell past colored bands of mineral impurities.
The inventors were a mixed batch. One was boisterous and political, having achieved success through writing excellent reports as opposed to doing superb research. His two companions were quieter and more self-absorbed, but their flashes of inspiration had produced technological wild cards that brought in a great deal of money for Richese.
It had taken the Sisterhood weeks to track them down, to concoct an appropriate excuse to bring them here. Ostensibly, these three men had been summoned to discuss retooling the Mother School’s power systems, to develop direct satellite links that would not interfere with the defensive screens surrounding Wallach IX. The Richesian government had been eager to offer their creative skills to the powerful Bene Gesserit.
The pretext had succeeded. In actuality, Harishka had requested these specific inventors because of their connections to the vanished Chobyn. They might have access to the records of his work, or know something important about what he had done.
“We have traveled far from the main complex,” said the meek inventor named Haloa Rund. Looking around as the suspensorpod descended, Rund noted the isolation of the quarry. It held few buildings and no noticeable rock-working technology. “What power requirements could you possibly have so far from your main complex?”
Having once studied at the Mentat School and failed, Rund still prided himself on his analytical mind. He was also a nephew of Count Ilban Richese, and had used his family connections to receive funding for eccentric projects that would have been denied to anyone else. His uncle doted on all of his own relatives.
“Mother Superior is waiting below,” Cristane answered, as if that would dispel any doubts. “And we have a problem for you to solve.”
Earlier, around the Mother School, Rund’s two associates had been enamored with the scenery, the orchards, and the stucco buildings with terra-cotta tile roofs. Few men were ever allowed to visit Wallach IX, and they drank in all the details like tourists, happy to go wherever the Sisters wanted to take them.
The suspensorpod reached the bottom of the quarry, where the men emerged and looked around. The razor breezes were sharp and cold. Rock cliffs rose in a stairstep formation above them, like an enclosed stadium.
The wreckage of the strange vessel lay covered with electrotarps, with its hull still visible under the slanting light. Mother Superior Harishka and several black-robed companions stood next to the ship. The Richesian inventors came forward, intrigued.
“What is this? A small scout fighter?” Talis Balt was a bald, bookish man who could do even complex equations in his head. “I was given to understand the Sisterhood had no overt military capability. Why would you own—”
“This is not ours,” Cristane replied. “We were attacked, but managed to destroy the vessel. It appears to have been equipped with a new form of defensive screen that makes it invisible to human eyes or scanning devices.”
“Impossible,” said Flinto Kinnis, the bureaucrat of the group. Though only a mid-level scientist, he had supervised highly successful technological teams.
“Nothing is impossible, Director,” Haloa Rund countered, his voice stern. “The first step in innovation is to know that a thing can