Here I bring you the continuation of this story. Here we will see the introduction of the characters that make up Dune's first book, and then Ren will be incorporated into the story.

I hope you enjoy.

"So ... this is the alternate line where Igor teleported us, right?" Morgana reflected, sticking her head into the leather bag, looking with a fine and sharp look at the new environment where she was. "Everything seems the same as the documentaries that appear on television where they talk about the Arab world and its constructions. Did all of humanity in this timeline decide to live that kind of life as a tribute?"

"... Based on our presence in this place, yes," said Ren, who was walking down a street full of people who went from one place to another, wearing Arab-type garments, such as tunics of different colors, veils. . that covered their heads, scarves on their necks and some clothes like shirts and pants that both men and women wore, contrary to Islamic demands ... not to mention the intense blue eyes that covered the pupils and the corneas, a trait that Igor had told him that it was the product of the narcotic called melange that changed his internal system as a product of adaptation to the deadly desert planet.

The clothing he wore to pass unnoticed among the inhabitants was a white wool shirt with a black shawl and linen pants with tight leather shoes; A beige hijab covered her curly hair and neck, revealing her face and eyes the same shade as the inhabitants thanks to an illusion spell. He had both hands in his pockets and the bag where the cat was inside hung from his left shoulder, walking naturally and calmly down the street without raising suspicions, a habit that he characterized on Earth.

The clothes and bag were a gift Igor had given him to adapt to the new environment to which they would send him after Morgana appeared in the Velvet Room; The door that would take them to the desert planet materialized after a whitish light with blue outlines in front of them, and the two of them had passed through after saying goodbye to the two of them, who would soon see them again; even Lavenza winked lovingly at him when he left.

They had both appeared in a desolate alley of transient activity, which was a good sign that he got out of there and started walking down the street with a normal and relaxed demeanor.

On his walk, Ren was able to distinguish that the entire city was shaped like an urban planning garrison of a few square diameters that encompassed all the arched buildings. The streets connected with other sectors with high movement of citizens; there were shopping malls in very small areas where people bought and exchanged water and some coins or other barter items; The houses and other residential developments were made of detailed stonework in a well-sculpted manner and Yusuke would be fascinated to capture it in his sketchbook like the locals.

Ren looked up at the imposing great wall of rock that surrounded the entire city that protected them from sandstorms and worms. The intense sunlight formed paths on the mountain peaks above the city, as well as extensive shadows on the flat, earthy surface that refreshed the ground. In the sky-blue sky with high orange contours, you could see in the distance the two moons that were suspended thousands of kilometers away in the ice cream of outer space.

It was hot, I could not doubt that in any desert area where the high degrees of temperature served to melt an ice cube, as in the Futaba Palace that represented the vast dunes of Egypt; But at least his clothes kept him hydrated inside, like the locals in tight leather suits and clothes like dry cloths, a tactic to survive in a deadly world where water and rain were scarce ... Although food was not when he visited. the markets where there were meats, cereals, grains, vegetables and fruits of all kinds that were seen on Earth and that still existed in the future.

Ren walked around, observing, scrutinizing, trying to familiarize himself with the surroundings in the routes and alleys that could serve him in case of hiding from his pursuers; there were residential areas where he could stay as globetrotters; he had his cell phone, and with it the application of the Metaverse Navigator in which Igor gave him at the given moment to use it when it is time to reform a corrupt individual in the new world he was in ... how eager he was to see the counterpart cognitive of the city, and would also serve to pay the rent for a room.

Language was the least of it; Alilat, his Persona from the Empress Arcana of Makoto, helped him configure his Japanese language to match the language spoken by the locals which was Arabic, but a bit more futuristic.

His Persona kept being happy at the nostalgia of seeing his ancient followers hearing that they still praised the rocks in a divine way, remembering that this was the abstract manifestation of the ancient goddess that the Sumerians worshiped the rocks in a divine way that later It was brought to Arabia by merchants and by nomads in its settlement in the past, until its worship and worship was eliminated by the arrival of the prophet Muhammad who spread the message of Islam to all of Arabia, ending all idols. pagans.

"... There is our objective" Ren indicated with a gesture as he stood in a corner, resting from the reconnaissance walk.

Morgana sharpened her feline eyes, fixing on a palace that was three kilometers away with high watchtowers and high walls that enclosed it as a measure of protection.

"The residential home of Duke Atreides and his family," deduced the cat. "I must say that the palace is something very realistic for someone who is related to the monarch who rules this entire empire, can you believe it, huh? What a coincidence"

"... Everything happens at the right time" Ren said jokingly, "but our priority is to protect his heir"

"The one who was created to be some kind of perfect human?"

"... Something like that" he shrugged.

"Hmmm, I see" the cat returned his gaze to the palace. "How are we going to get in? There is security in the towers and on the sides of the wall; they would catch us if they discover if they have invisible cameras or some futuristic gadget"

"... It's an excellent guess." Ren nodded. He observed the palace for a few seconds, analyzing, devising a way to enter it, although he had to have discretion and a serious sweep of the area to enter, a fact learned when entering a cognitive Palace and knowing where the Treasure is located. and the Shadowed Being that guarded it.

He was on another timeline, in a galaxy where humanity was established in a feudal system where conspiracies and murders go hand in hand, and that was why he must be cautious in using his experiences on Earth to confront one another. different situation, and it was when asked to alter a predetermined scenario. Fate could be altered by making decisions in which he could alter the facts, and Ren Amamiya himself had been that person by being chosen as a rebellious spirit who did not bow to any law.

He and the Phantom Thieves were those who did not oppose the jurisdiction of the arbitrary order, and the clear example in each one who could choose his own path, was the elimination of the figure that represented the authority regime, and that's where Yaldabaoth came in being the distorted manifestation of human desires in living under the yoke of an authoritarian submission to the actions exercised by a society in decline and corroded by the corruption of the people and their rulers.

With a single shot from a rebellious angel it was enough to destroy that system, making believe that everyone deserved to have a second chance in their lives without any totalitarian regime or a representative deity of the law.

Now it was time to change the course of a young man's destiny with a huge burden on his shoulders.

Ren was deep in thought, searching for various options on how he would enter the Duke Atreides' palace. Maybe he could pass himself off as a servant, although I would ask him several questions about where he came from the city or from the moors outside ... very risky. Then there was the next option when listening to the news of a kind of quarterback who would measure the development of the confrontation ... that would not be bad.

"... I know" he said at last with a smile drawn at his corners.

"Seriously?" Morgana replied, cocking her head and frowning. "How?"

"... It is a complicated plan, but it will work" Ren began to give directions to Morgana which is what he would have to do.

Paul was mired in his studies to distract himself from the events that had occurred in the morning. He picked up some bookfilms, papers and maps scattered on an L-shaped table in the exercise room. Knowing that he played the practices that with his tutors, he decided to take advantage of the minutes he had left to distract himself for a while in nurturing his mind of knowledge, trying to make aside the comment that the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam had said about the life of His father was about to end forever.

He didn't want to believe it ... he didn't want it to be true ... he didn't want to think that both women talked about as if their father had just died recently, even when the Reverend Mother took it naturally, seeing everything that happened had an end to a greater good, and that bothered him.

He felt the throbbing pain in his hand that made him shiver, but to suppress that pain, knowing perfectly well that it was not real, but a psychological test how human his senses were when he experienced a lethal suffering that let him know if it was the Kwisatz Haderach, the super-being that the Sisterhood Bene Gesserit was looking for through her genetic breeding project.

Was it really the Kwisatz Haderach? Was that why the old witch came to Castel Caladan? Perhaps it could be true, or perhaps because, according to their studies, the Bene Gesserit have the ability to alter their bodies by eating spices to develop their mystical abilities, and one of them is to genetically change the sex of the embryo in the uterus, and possibly, these changes could change the baby genetically, ending the coming of the Reverend Mother and Truesayer of Emperor Padishah Shaddam IV, Gaius Helen Mohiam, with high expectation that he was the superior human being given birth by His mother, a Bene Gesserit concubine.

The chances of him being the Kwisatz Haderach could be exact by taking into account the strange dreams he had when he dreamed; the girl and the adolescent with her domestic cat generated intrigues with regard to whether there was a possibility that they could exist and find them by chance when they arrived at Arrakis.

In the event that everything goes wrong in Arrakis, the Reverend Mother would send a group to her rescue, not her family, but to him, the possible superhuman who is an essential part of Sisterhood as a puppet to ensure the preservation of the species human in the galaxy.

His thoughts were turned aside when he heard how the door had just opened and closed at once smoothly.

He did not turn to look at who had entered, but remained where he was sitting quietly with his eyes fixed on the information he was reading. His lips curved in a smile that he couldn't bear to suppress because of the childish humor of knowing who he was.

"I know. I'm sitting with my back to the door."

"That noise can be imitated," the owner of the voice spoke reproachfully as a scolding.

Paul turned his head, and met the eyes of his three instructors, and close friends.

The first was a gray-haired old man with brown eyes, wrinkles that were noticeable by age and lips stained red by sapho juice, a liquid extracted from the roots of the plants of the planet of Ecaz that amplifies the observational ability of Mentats He wore a light green uniform buttoned with shoulder pads, leather boots and the Atreides red eagle print on the sleeve.

The second was a man of straight stature with a square block of head and black hair, with long hair and trapped in a silver ring of the Suk School of Internal Medicine. He had a sallow complexion, cheeks angled up, almond-shaped eyes like dark sequins and a drooping mustache that hung like a curved frame around his purple lips and narrow chin. His forehead was tattooed with the black diamond of Imperial Conditioning. He wore black clothes with silver stripes on his neck, covered by a light green raincoat with gray shoulder pads.

The third was a robust man with muscular spleens and long finger hands with large thumbs. His head was square as was his jaw; He had faint blond hair that crawled on sterile spots on his forehead. His face was lumpy with flat features, detailed with a round nose, a lumpy chin and blue eyes with glass splinters. He wore the same uniform as the first man: light green buttoned with men and the red eagle on his sleeve. He carried with him a nine-string basilet with his multipic placed between the ropes and an armful of arms.

He smiled with amused countenance knowing that Gurney Halleck, Thufir Hawat and Wellington Yueh were the only people who visited him in the exercise room just at the right time to mentally calculate the schedules with which they visited. He knew that the three were going to visit him with the passing of a single step, but he distinguished it by simply sharpening his ear and being carried away by his instincts.

"I would distinguish him," Paul said, holding his smile.

'Yes, maybe I would distinguish it. He is capable of it' thought the Mentat Thufir Hawat with analytical deduction. 'That witch of his mother has certainly trained him well. I wonder what your precious school should think of that. Maybe that's why they sent me to the old Censor here ... to get back on the right track to our dear Lady Jessica'

"My father tests me again," Paul said, rising from his chair and glancing at Gurney with his musical instrument. "Are you coming to prepare for music when it's time to fight?"

"So today it's time to disrespect your elders, ehh?" Gurney replied in his usual sarcastic tone. Among all his father's men. Gurney was the one he liked best: he knew his mood swings, his weaknesses, his character. He was a friend to him more than a mercenary sword.

Gurney placed the basilet in a corner.

"Then there will be music to play after you finish your training," he said, placing the weapons on a table, aligning them in order: there were swords, daggers, kindjals, slow-loading stunners, and belts-shields.

"Wasn't Duncan supposed to teach me the use of weapons? Where is he?" Paul asked curiously.

"Duncan has gone at the head of the second wave towards Arrakis," Thufir explained. "It will be my turn to leave as well, but I decided to pay you a visit before I go where Gurney will act as a substitute," he scrutinized, looking at the documents. "I see you used your time to inform yourself about the planet"

"I was studying the storms of Arrakis," the boy replied.

"Sandstorms," said the Mentat thoughtfully. "I see"

"They seem rather bad," Paul admitted.

"It's a very cautious word: bad," Thufir spoke wisely. "These storms are unleashed along six or seven thousand kilometers of flat land, and feed on everything that can give them greater thrust: the coriolis force, other storms, anything that has a gram of energy in it. They blow at seven hundred kilometers an hour, sweeping away anything mobile they find in their path: sand, dust, anything. They tear the flesh of your bones and reduce them to splinters"

"Arrakis poses spatial problems" Gurney Halleck replied that he had put on the shield belt and his kindjal at hand, placing himself in the center of the training room. "The costs are very high, huge maintenance and everything else. The Guild demands a prohibitive price for a control satellite, and the House Atreides is not among the richest, boy. You know that well."

"Yes, I understand," Paul intoned with affirmation. He picked up his weapon and the shield belt as he stood a few steps away from Gurney, taking an attack position.

"¡Hey, Thufir!" Gurney Halleck called in an energetic voice, "do you plan on staying watching Paul face me?"

"I would gladly do it," said the Mentat with a smile on his lips stained red, "but I must be punctual with my work: Duke Leto demands that everything be in place when I arrive in the city of Arrakeen for inspection. Try not to get carried away by emotion, Gurney, since we need you intact and healthy"

"But at least we have Yueh with us," said the troubadour warrior with his usual sarcasm.

"I will make sure that Paul does not suffer any contunity in training," Wellington Yueh told him with a smile. "Don't worry, I know very well what I have to do"

"I leave it to you" And with that, Thufir left the room towards the door and disappeared as he closed it.

"Very well, boy," Gurney said, flexing his muscles as he took his position, "show me what you can do."

The shields were activated, wrapping both opponents in a bright orange field with three-dimensional stripes.

Gurney attacked first by making a feint to one side, then another forward, and launched a furious attack. The shields crackled loudly in a distorted tone when touching and repelling themselves of the blows inflicted between the two. Paul moved his left hand, causing the dagger attached to his wrist to slide to his palm, and then counterattacked by launching sagacious attacks that stunned the protective field that enveloped Gurney.

He lost his balance when Gurney gave him a header that made him fall on the ceramic floor. He got up, energetic, with the adrenaline pumping him all over his body at the clamor of the fight. He attacked again, taking Gurney off guard that he could barely block the attacks that were directed at him in an adherent and sinister manner due to the speed exerted by the boy's limbs.

Paul stopped a low blow, cocked. Fint to the side, launched an attack with his weapon and at the same time advanced the dagger to the height of the neck of his instructor, crossing the shield. He stopped the blade two centimeters from the jugular.

"Did you want this?" Paul whispered.

"Well, the dagger goes through the shield slowly, but ..." Gurney nodded. "Look down"

He obeyed, and saw his instructor's kindjal pointing directly at his belly.

"We would kill each other," Gurney said. "But I must admit that you fought a little better when you're under pressure. Now you're really homor" gave him a wolfish smile, making the stigma scar on his chin twitch.

"The way you attacked me," Paul said. "Would you have really shed my blood?"

Gurney pushed the kindjal away and stood up.

"If you had beaten an apex below your capabilities, boy, I would have made a good sign, and you would have always remembered this scar. I don't want my favorite student to succumb to the first tramp Harkonnen who comes to meet him"

Paul deactivated his shield and leaned on the table where the documents were to catch his breath. Dr. Yueh probed his hand where he had carried the kindjal in search of some ailment.

"The situation has become serious," Paul replied uncertainly.

"Soon we will arrive at Arrakis," Gurney seriously reminded him with a stern and sympathetic look. "This is not really a game. Arrakis is real. The Harkonnen are real."

Paul nodded. He marveled at the unusual seriousness of Gurney's attitude, his firm resolve. He looked at the violet stigma scar that adorned his jaw, and remembered the story that the story had told him about what had been Glossu Rabban Harkonnen, nicknamed the Beast, who had been caused in a slave pit in Giede Prime. He understood then that this scar often meant a lot of pain for Gurney ... such intense pain, just as he was afflicted by the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam. But he hastened to reject that idea: it froze his whole world.

"Doctor Yueh" Paul decided to change the subject by talking to the doctor with Imperial Conditioning, "do you know anything about Arrakis' worms?"

"I have a bookfilm about a small specimen, only one hundred and ten meters long by twenty-two in diameter. It was recorded at the northern end of the planet. Witnesses worthy of faith have spoken of worms over four hundred meters in length, and this suggests that it is possible that there are even other elders, in the desert, far from Arrakeen, where we will be. The desert and the south pole are forbidden territory"

Paul's gaze turned to a conical projection map of the northern regions of Arrakis that was on the table.

"The desert belt and the southern polar region are classified as uninhabitable. Is it because of the worms?"

"And the storms," Dr. Yueh specified, "which refers to the talk given by Thufir about the fact that they reach seven hundred kilometers per hour. They spray life in minutes. They generate a lot of static electricity in the atmosphere. The shields don't will be enough to operate outdoors in Arrakis"

"How do Fremen survive?" Paul wanted to know.

"We don't know much about them. They live in the desert, some in cities. There are two main groups of people: the Fremen form one of them, and the other is made up of the villages of the graben, the sink and the bread. According to I understand, sometimes they marry each other. Women in the bread and sink villages prefer Fremen husbands; their men prefer Fremen wives. They have a saying: 'education comes from the city, the wisdom of the desert'"

"Do you have pictures of them?"

"I'll look for some. The most important feature, of course, is his eyes: totally blue, without the white meno in them."

"Ah, the eyes, yes," Paul replied, recalling in his investigation about the strange peculiarity of the eyes that the inhabitants of Arrakis had, including getting to remember the beautiful girl with those same eyes. "The saturation of the melange spice in the blood. The Fremen have to be very brave to live on the edge of the desert"

"Everyone says so," Gurney Halleck intervened in the conversation. "They compose poems to their knives. Women are as wild as men. Even the Fremen boys are violent and dangerous. I don't think you'll be allowed to mix with them when they know you're an outsider."

"True," Paul said, understanding that the Fremen are a conservative people who refuse to share their customs with the people who made up the Empire. The information collected from the imperial documents related that the Fremen descended from the Zensunni refugees during the Butlerian Jihad by escaping from various worlds ravaged by the bloody war between humanity and the machines. Zensunni migrant fleets arrived at Arrakis as the only safe world and their way of life had to evolve to adapt to the deadly desert planet populated by deadly storms and gigantic worms.

In the middle of the imperial era, the Fremen work as workers in the extraction of the melange spice to sustain themselves economically in the agro-industrial area, enjoying a good stability of life to the sustenance of the workforce they did in exchange for the economic payment of the Empire and of merchants from other worlds that sold their products in exchange for spice and water.

Another thing that was to be taken into account, was that the Fremen were to pay attention and be submissive to the mandate of a Great House designated by Emperor Padishah that would govern them as a quasi-fief or feud-serve. The Harkonnen ruled Arrakis with an iron hand for many years by using the fear and persecution of the rebels who opposed his mandate, which led the Fremen population to develop a hatred and resentment towards their oppressors, making them the perfect ally .

"The Fremen may be a closed town," said Dr. Yueh, wearing the fallen mustache, "but it is possible to gain their trust with the benevolence of Duke Leto by being the new ruler of Arrakis. The Fremen despise the Harkonnen, at just like us; a common feeling unites us to a greater cause. Before I leave, I want to give you a gift, something I found when packing my bags" He put an object on the table: black, oblong, no longer than the last phalanx of Paul's thumb.

Yueh noticed that the young heir Atreides did not make the slightest gesture to touch him, and thought: 'He is cautious'

"An Orange Catholic Bible?" Gurney Halleck said curiously. "I didn't know you had one"

The Orange Catholic Bible was a compilation text of all religious beliefs embodied in a single book, created by the Commission of Ecumenical Translators on a neutral island of the Old Earth to preserve theological knowledge at the end of Butlerian Jihad. In the new sacred book the teachings of Maometh Saari, Mahayana Christianity, Zensunni Catholicism and Buddislam traditions had been compiled inside; even its name was changed during its creation to be striking, such as the Zenchristian Scriptures of Koranjiyana, the Accumulated Book, or the Zenvaristian Navakoran, but they decided to name the Orange Catholic Bible as a tribute to the sacred book created by the Hebrews of Israel.

"It's a very old. I was offered it when I was young when I read it as a hobby in my spare time when I was studying medicine at Suk School," Yueh explained. "It is not a bookfilm, but it is printed on thin paper. It has its magnifying device and an electrostatic charging system." He lifted it from the table surface to show it to Paul. "The load keeps it closed, attracting the covers together. Pressing with the finger on the spine ... thus, the pages selected by one repel and the book opens"

"It's very small," observed the young heir.

"But it has eighteen hundred pages. Press with your finger" Yueh showed him how it was. "That is, and the load turns the pages as you read. Never touch the pages with your fingers. The plot of the paper is very delicate." He closed the book and handed it to Paul. "Take it"

Paul held it in his hand, and inspected it in detail.

"It must have been done before the bookfilms"

"It's very old, yes. Your parents might think it's too valuable for a young man like you."

"Your mother will ask for my reasons," the doctor thought solemnly.

"Well ..." Paul closed the book after opening it. "If it's so valuable ..."

"Be forgiving with the whim of an old man" Yueh encouraged. "Open it for Kamila four hundred and sixty-seven where it says: 'Water is the beginning of all life.' There is a small mark on the lid that points to the place "

Paul toured the lid, found two marks, one less deep than the other. He pressed the shallowest and the book opened in his palm, with the magnifying device sliding into place.

"Read it," Yueh told him.

Paul moistened his lips and read.

"Think of the fact that the deaf cannot hear. Is there anyone who can say that he is not deaf? Do we not lack a sense to see and hear the other world around us? Because there is something to around us that we can't ... "

"High!" Yueh excited, raising his voice, and causing great surprise between Gurney and Paul.

The doctor closed his eyes, struggling to recover his poise. 'What perversity has made the book open about Wanna's favorite passage?' He opened his eyes, saw that the two were looking at him in bewilderment.

"Sorry," Yueh apologized, embarrassed. "It was my favorite passage ... late wife. It wasn't the one I wanted you to read. Wake up in my memories ... painful"

"I understand that it is not your fault for startling you upon hearing that paragraph, Yueh," Gurney consoled him sympathetically.

"I only chose it because it had two marked marks," Paul told him.

'Of course,' said Yueh mentally. 'Wanna pointed out that passage. His fingers are more sensitive than mine and he has found the mark. It's just an accident, nothing more'

"You may find this book interesting," Yueh had said, recovering from his sadness. "There is a lot of historical truth, and a lot of ethical philosophy"

Paul looked at the little book in his palm ... nothing so small. However, it contained a mystery ... something had happened while he read it. Something that had awakened a terrible purpose in his mind.

"I think it's time to retire so you can continue training; let them know if you need my help," the doctor announced, and looked at the young heir. "Save the book; it will serve as learning"

Paul touched the cover as he explained. The book closed by itself. He slipped it into a cabinet. For a moment, Yueh let out an exasperated noise from the deal, knowing that the book was very delicate.

"He thanked you for this, Dr. Yueh," Paul intoned formally. "If there is a gift or a favor you want from me, do not hesitate to ask me"

"I ... I don't want anything," Yueh muttered as he left the training room, leaving the apprentice and teacher alone.

"Well," Gurney Halleck spoke, "since we are both alone, it is time that we continue with your training. Now we will work with your speed; show me how you reach it with the left. I will control you from here, where I can better follow the action. And I warn you that today we will try again counterattacks. This is a warning that none of your real enemies will make you"

Paul rose on the tip of his feet to distend his muscles. He adopted a solemn attitude, with the sudden understanding that his life was sliding towards rapid changes. He advanced to the doll and pressed the tip of the kindjal the switch in the center of his chest; He immediately felt the repulsion of the newly activated shield on the blade.

"On guard!" Halleck shouted, and the doll launched into the attack.

Paul activated the shield, stopped and counterattacked.

Gurney watched him as he manipulated the controls. His mind seemed to split into two: one alert to the development of training, and the other drifting through the clouds.

'I am a well-cared fruit tree' he thought to himself. 'Full of good feelings and skills and all those beautiful things that grow in me ... so that someone else can collect them'

For some reason, he remembered his younger sister, with his elf face defined in his mind. But she had died ... in a house of pleasure for the Harkonnen troops.

Paul dodged a slow blow of the doll and threw an entrestisser with his left.

'That cunning little demon!' Gurney thought, concentrating on Paul's complex movements. 'He has practiced and studied on his own. That is not Duncan's style, he has never been able to teach him anything like that.'

The training with the automatic doll continued, and Gurney kept thinking about Paul's strange reflexes.

After finishing the training, Paul decided to meet his father who was waiting for him on a balcony overlooking Caladan. He found him standing with both hands resting on the battlements, watching the sunset of the afternoon that gave the sea a bright appearance and the sky dyed a light orange.

"Father," Paul called, approaching his side, and he turned to look at him.

The Duke was tall, olive skinned. His long, thin face was carved in hard angles, softened only by deep gray eyes. He wore a dark green uniform with the red heraldic hawk embroidered on his chest. A silver shield belt belted his thin waist for use as a belt in his pants the same color as the uniform.

The expression would be of his father changed to that of a benevolent and kind one.

"Thank you for coming, son," Duke Leto Atreides said softly. "Has the work been hard?"

It really was for Paul; He had felt tired when he had to fight Gurney and the automatic doll to test his skills and reflexes. That was a fatigue for him, but he made a hard effort to show us. 'I will have to take every opportunity to rest during the trip to Arrakis,' he thought. 'In Arrakis I will not have time to do it'

"Not very hard," Paul replied simply. "Everything is ..." He shrugged.

"I understand you, son," said his father, glancing from his eyes through the castle, the sea, and the evening light. "Tomorrow we will leave. It will be good to settle in our new home and leave the anguish behind"

Paul nodded silently, and a melancholy made him shiver completely, as if he were witnessing the last moments of being with his father. He felt sadness, pain and uncertainty. The Reverend Mother's words kept harassing him inside her mind, causing him to feel disoriented, believing he was speaking with a hallucination instead of his real father.

"Father," Paul spoke, trying to be formal, "do you think Arrakis will be as dangerous as everyone says?"

His father made a casual gesture, and his gaze was fixed on the vast silent sea, with barely the slightest sound of the waves moving. That look was distant and flat.

"It will be dangerous," he admitted.

"But we have the Fremen. Thufir has told me that, while studying in the Mentats arts, we could establish a trust with them."

"Have I ever told you about Salusa Secundus?"

"The prison planet? No," Paul had said in denial. Salusa Secundus was the third planet that was located in Gamma Waiping, considered in the past to be a prosperous world in vegetation and minerals, as well as having an indigenous fauna and a temperate climate. It had been the home of the House Corrino during the years of the establishment of the Empire as a totalitarian hegemony in the galaxy, until everything changed when the planet was bombarded by the use of atomic weapons orchestrated by the House Tantor; being the reason for an uprising against the Corrino monarchy.

The imperial capital had been moved to the planet Kaitain in the Alpha Waiping star system along with the intact Corrino family. Emperor Padishah Hassik III attacked the House Tantor as the cause of the assassination, declaring the complete elimination of the House renounced on the planet Tantor when a fleet of ships was launched that caused a great destruction on the planet and the death of thousands of innocents.

With the entire planet devastated, and with a deadly and arid environment, Salusa Secundus was reused as a prison where the criminals of the Empire were sent there, exposed to the extreme conditions represented by the yermic world.

"What if it were more than a prison planet, Paul? There's a question you've never asked yourself about the Imperial Body of the Sardaukars: where do they come from?"

"From the planet Salusa Secundus prison?"

"They come from somewhere"

Paul tried to process what his father was getting ... until he understood.

"Father, I don't understand; do the Sardaukars have a plot in this?"

"You see, son," he explained condescendingly, his father. "The production of the melange spice is very important for the Empire, since it is a product highly demanded and used by consumers in different ways. The CHOAM Company gave me the command to be the new production supervisor in Arrakis, and as another gift, they granted me a directory under the order of His Majesty as a show of generosity ... a subtle advantage"

"CHOAM controls the spice," said Paul.

"And Arrakis with his spice will open the doors of CHOAM" added Duke Leto. "There is much more to CHOAM than melange. Few are the products that are beyond CHOAM's control: logs, mules, horses, cows, wood, manure, sharks, whale skins ... the most prosaic and the most exotic ... even our poor Caladan pundi rice. Anything that the Guild can transport: the works of art of Ecaz, the machines of Richese and Ix. But all this is nothing next to the melange. A handful of spice it is enough to buy a house in Tulipe. It cannot be manufactured, it has to be extracted from Arrakis. It is unique, and its geriatric properties are indisputable"

"And we control it now," Paul added.

"Up to a point," his father specified. "But the important thing is to consider that all the Great Houses depend on the benefits of CHOAM. And think that a huge proportion of these benefits depend on a single product: the spice. Imagine what would happen if something reduced the production of melange."

"A revolt caused by workers and a private storage of melange?"

"Exactly," Duke Leto nodded. "Not only the Harkonnen have mistreated the workers in Arrakis, but they have stored the spice for twenty years. Think of the Council of the Great Noble Houses of the Landsraad who would react to see I was responsible for a serious reduction in their benefits. After all, benefits are the only thing that counts, everyone will lean toward the other side, without supporting anything I do, we know that the Harkonnen have stored melange, so let us ask another question: Who else has been storing it? It's on the list of our enemies"

"Who?" Paul asked.

"Some Houses that we know are enemies, and some others that we thought were friends. But it is not necessary to take this into account at the moment, since there is also someone much more important than all of them: our well-loved Emperor Padishah Shaddam IV"

Paul suddenly noticed that his mouth was dry.

"You could summon Landsraad and expose him ..."

"To inform our enemies that we know whose hand the knife is holding?" He cut Duke Leto. "Now we see the knife. Who can know who will wield it tomorrow? If we show all this to Landsraad, all we can do is create enormous confusion. Emperor Padishah will deny it all. How can we refute it? We may gain some time, but risking chaos. And where will the next attack come from?"

"The Sardaukars ..." Paul acknowledged, "... the Sardaukars are the next attack"

His father smiled at his objectivity.

"A very successful point seen from the perspective of a noble son educated by a Mentat. The Harkonnen will receive help from the disguised Sardaukars to go unnoticed when they invade Arrakis. The Sardaukars are recognized for their deadly combat techniques, something that should only if it is required in an arid and infernal environment to have such heavily trained and trained soldiers; only Salusa Secundus can meet those expectations. The only option to fight with an army of that caliber is to have another army of the same caliber."

"The Fremen"

"We have there a potential force as important and as deadly as the Sardaukars. It will take a lot of patience to train it secretly and a lot of money to equate it effectively. The Fremen are there ... and also the spice, with all the wealth that it entails. Do you understand now why we are going to Arrakis, even knowing the trap it represents?"

"Do the Harkonnen know nothing about the Fremen?"

"The Harkonnen despise the Fremen. They hunt them for sport, they have never worried about censoring them. We know well the Harkonnen's policy regarding planetary populations: keeping them at the lowest possible cost" The metal plot that formed the falcon symbol in his chest flashed when Duke Leto Atreides changed position. "Do you understand?"

"Yes," Paul had said, understanding the whole plan built by his father. "Let's negotiate with the Fremen"

"And for that, I sent Duncan Idaho in the second wave to Arrakis," his father added. "Duncan is a proud and determined man, but he respects the truth. The Fremen will admire him. If we are lucky, they will judge us by taking him as a model: Duncan the honest"

"Duncan the honest" Paul repeated with a joking tone, "and Gurney the courageous"

"Exactly" his father recognized him, smiling at him. "I have known that your performance in practice with weapons has been improving professionally, as well as your sense of orientation and observation, a definite feature among the Mentats. Thufir ensures that you are the best student he has had. Yueh, Gurney and Duncan think the same. I'm proud"

"I want you to be," Paul said, a melancholy peeking out in his voice.

His father nodded at him, and his gaze fixed as the blackness of the afternoon was hovering over the sky. Sea currents resonated with the change of movement. A warm breeze bellowed, wrapping father and son with his heady freshness. The banner blew in the breeze, as if it were a snake in motion.

"I will miss the sea," Duke Leto finally said after a moment of silence. "You need new experiences. They stir something inside us that allows us to grow. Without changes, something sleeps inside us that rarely wakes up."

Paul kept silent, letting his father's words enter his mind and be stored in his brain's memory.

"The sleeper must wake up" The Duke's voice was low, harsh, and grim. His hand clenched the edge of the battlement tightly, stiffening.

For a moment, Paul thought he saw the features of a skull on his father's face. He tried to put aside even that terrible purpose he saw when he saw the phantasmagoric feature on his father's face, as if it were an omen of bad omen, making him understand that death loomed over those who had the hours counted.

'The sleeper must wake up ...'

In the dark private chambers that had belonged to the Atreides dukes for generations, Jessica and Leto were in romantic arms, wrapped in a soft crimson sheet that covered their naked bodies.

Leto walked gently through her lover's silky hair, and she spoke to him tenderly.

"I told you that I would conceive a daughter in our game"

"I remember," Leto had said in the same tone, smiling. "Conceived with love to our departure" His happy expression changed to a gloomy one, breaking his gaze with his lover and putting it on the ceiling, believing to seek an answer to his uncertainty that he ate inside him. "But Arrakis is a hostile world"

"I want to be sure you love her," Jessica said, burying her face in Leto's neck; Her tone came out as a needy desire. She stroked her lover's chin with her fingers in an affectionate gesture. "It must be tonight ... under this influence"

Leto stroked her cheek with his nose, then kissed her on the lips, feeling the tenderness and devotion of her beloved duke who processed him, making her feel intoxicated by the love she gave him to feel the touch of his lips with his .

She did not know that all this would have consequences when making a decision that completely changed the strategy planned by Sisterhood Bene Gesserit by being chosen for her previously qualified skill when she had been a young student in the arts of Sisterhood.

She was chosen by the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam to carry out her mission as a concubine of Duke Leto Atreides to be impregnated and have a female offspring where the following plan would subsequently be made: that an Atreides daughter be betrothed by a Harkonnen heir to save both lines genetic and that the two beget the Kwisatz Haderach, the superior human who would bring the balance in the galaxy. But she did not ... did not continue with the plan entrusted by the Sisterhood that there was so much faith ... but really fell in love with her conjugue.

At first glance, Duke Leto Atreides was a cold, reserved and serious man, but when he began to know him more thoroughly through his marital political union, he discovered that the Duke's attitude was a facade to cover up for an honest, admired, kind person , affectionate and gentle. Duke Leto Atreides proved to be an individual who cared for others and always won the admiration of others for his fair and loyal attitude. He treated her like a lady instead of a simple concubine who served as an ornament; He made her feel comfortable when he was always by her side, and with that, her feelings loosed inside her.

She fell deeply in love with Duke Leto, reaching such a point that he decided not to continue with the plan to breed a female, but a male, male heir who would continue with the lineage of the Atreides in Caladan.

She knew that this would bring serious consequences by jeopardizing an ancient plan that would bring salvation to the human race from its entrenched stagnation by the mere fact of having fallen in love with a noble man who could get his emotions repressed by duty to be open. of his repression.

All Bene Gesserit must be cold in not feeling appreciation for any individual or experiencing profane feelings such as love, and she rebelled at his duty.

She did it for love. She did it to have a family. She did it to be something else: a new opportunity in life to be a duke's partner.

"I haven't heard you with the wind," Jessica replied in a whisper.

"I have whispered yes," Leto said, kissing him on the forehead.

"And I whisper ..." Jessica's hand stroked her cheek, "... I love you"

The two lovers were wrapped in kisses and friction with their bodies as the whistle of the sea and the scourge of the breeze were heard outside in the middle of a starry night.

The moment of departure to Arrakis had begun in the middle of the night when the Atreides entered a transport ship of the Guild in the spaceport of Caladan along with the others waiting to take off.

The frigates transport ships were large that could land and take off successfully from the surface of a planet in one piece. They were described by having a quadrangular design where about thirty people could fit inside and with wings in the form of plates. They were used for the move when it was required that all the members of a great noble House chosen to occupy a planetary fief had to be transported to their destination. The transport ships picked them up first, and then they were taken to a Heighliner who were waiting for them in the space to make the trip.

The transport was paid by Emperor Padishah Shaddam IV as a sign of solidarity towards Duke Leto by ruling the Arrakis fief as the new supervisor of the melange spice.

Paul and his parents were in the upper chamber, sitting in crimson-lined seats and brass walls, watching through the windows as the transport ship amounted to ten thousand kilometers high, leaving Caladan's night sky behind and entering in outer space covered with stars that shone like candles in the middle of the darkness.

The frigate transport ship sailed along with the others in an orderly row position that headed towards the open hangars of an immense cylindrical nave about twenty kilometers long and jet-surface that was suspended in space.

The Heighliners were spacecraft used in the transport of planetary migrations with the shipment of the transport frigates filled with passengers when they were stored in the hangars at the time of doubling the space with the activation of Holtzman Engines and directed by a Navigator and a helmsman.

A coupling sound was heard when the frigate where the Atreides traveled parked on their platform.

"Soon they will fold the space," said Duke Leto in a uniform and calm voice.

'We will travel without moving,' said Paul internally, fascinated to experience space travel with his parents.

Space folding is the alteration of reality when the space-time fabric is deformed to ensure a faster trip from one point to another without the use of jump engines; a method used by the scientist Tio Holtzman during the time of the Butlerian Jihad where an FTL engine was required that could go unnoticed and attack the Thinking Machines by surprise.

With the application of the theory of crossing the veil of reality specified by Holtzman, the first FTL engine was designed that could meet the expectations in the war that helped give great victories to humanity, and was later used on cruise ships newly formed Spacing Guild by Aurelius Venport as an independent corporation in providing the monopoly of space flights at the beginning of the Empire in the Great Convention where they would be the only company that guaranteed such trips through the galaxy in exchange for the established payment.

In outer space, the Heighliner's Holtzman engines shone in a bright bluish tone with clear contours, followed by a fluttering density that enveloped the cylindrical cruiser. The material plane of space blackness was distorted, and in an instant, the Heighliner disappeared from reality.

Then, for a minute on a strip of the galaxy, the Heighliner materialized as a supernatural spooky apparition in the middle of the space sea.

Below, about six hundred kilometers away, was a planet of orange contours due to its vast rough and unpopulated wilderness of some green area on its surface of pure sand and mountain ranges that were seen in the form of drawn strokes.

That was Arrakis, known as Dune, the Desert Planet, home of the melange spice, and residential home of the House Atreides.

Located in an unidentified cave on the vast sandy and rocky surface that made up Arrakis, an old woman with a wrinkled face dressed in a black suit whose hood, thrown back, revealed a mass of gray hair tightly in a bun, raised her left arm and opened the palm of his hand as if trying to catch the wind. The old woman's intense bluish eyes shone with a fleeting flash in them.

"And now, the prophecy" the old woman intoned with religious and prophetic sermon. "The chosen one will arrive. The voice of the outside world, which will bring holy war, the Jihad, which will purify the universe and bring us out of darkness."

The frigates landed in the spaceport about three distances from the Arrakeen Palace. Soldiers in cream uniforms formed ranks when Duke Leto and his family left the frigate as they walked along a crimson carpet that was deployed on the ground when walking on it. The sun of Arrakis received them by an intense welcome light as well as the heat that the planet produced, although it did not affect them by feeling overwhelming.

The Atreides family was accompanied by their soldiers who followed them in a march in unison, with the banners of the representative banner turning them in circular movements at a well-developed pace when they hoisted them in arches when the Atreides family climbed up the steps into the open interior of the Grand Palace.

Duke Leto separated from his wife and son when he explained that he had to monitor the progress of the second and third waves of Duncan Idaho and Thufir Hawat.

He crossed a spacious square room with pillars in each corner, a floor built of ceramic with steps that led to two open doors. There was a rectangular cabinet attached to the wall and a desk in the center of the room with handcrafted chairs with dedication when stacked. The entire room was illuminated by the open windows that let in the sunlight of Arrakis.

A few steps were heard at the door on the north side, and from it came a young man with a tan complexion and a fine feature, looking very handsome. He had curly black hair and his eyes were greenish blue. He wore a dark brown suit with flexible designs for the individual's comfort.

Leto Atreides smiled happily to see that his faithful friend, Duncan Idaho, was alive.

"Duncan" Leto said with relief and joy when he hugged him in fraternal affection and then released him.

"The Fremen send you a message, my lord," Duncan replied, handing him a pen-shaped cylinder. Leto grabbed it, uncovered it and read the message silently.

"Have you read it?" asked the Duke.

"No," Duncan replied by shaking his head, "they told me it was for you."

Leto read the message written in a not very loud voice.

"It says: 'A column of smoke by day, a bonfire by night'." He looked at him questioningly after reciting it.

"A warning," Duncan specified.

"Very dark," he said grimly. "What have you discovered about the Fremen? Tell me. Why haven't we heard from you?"

"My lord," Duncan spoke anxiously, "I have suspicions. They are the allies we seek. They are strong, relentless. They show loyalty to every test. As you know, the Empire has never been able to censor the Fremen. It is believed that there are some few wandering in the desert. My lord, I suspect that this planet harbors an incredible secret. That the Fremen exist in large numbers. They control Arrakis"

The Duke was silent, stunned by the revelation Duncan just told him.

There were Fremen, many Fremen, perhaps thousands, hidden in each hidden area without being seen.

What was a great dark room, was illuminated with the light of the flying suspensors and the opening of the windows by the Atreides soldiers when unloading and moving the boxes and trunks. Some scanned walls, floors, ceilings, corners; others were installing equipment and patrolling the surroundings of the Grand Palace, in search of a possible deadly trap devised by the Harkonnen without being seen.

Lady Jessica and doctor Wellington Yueh went down the stairs to monitor security performance.

Apparently everything was normal, without any singularity or mishap, although one should not be distracted or let your guard down. The danger could attack at any time, even when it is in an unknown place, especially a planet where the most requested product is produced throughout the galaxy.

"My lady," said a senior-looking female soldier who was accompanied by a young female subordinate and two men carrying their weapons at hand, "the native servants await your inspection. Hawat approves them."

Jessica observed at the front of the room that there were twenty women in green clothes and brown shawls. They were Fremen just by seeing them in their bluish eyes without white sclera. Some were brunettes and others caucasian. All of them were standing, straight and silent, waiting for the order of their new mistress.

She came over to inspect them all, but Yueh stopped her by placing her hand on his man.

"Excuse me, my lady," he said in a noble and polite tone. "The Harkonnen could have manipulated them" Yueh activated a device with a light where a yellow light was lit in its hole. A poison and narcotic detector that he always carried in extreme emergency.

The yellow light of the detector advanced on the face of each Fremen maid in search of one being influenced by a deadly narcotic. The soldiers were firm, with weapons ready in case of opening fire at the time of order.

"When you pronounce the name ... I didn't know you had reason to hate them," Jessica told him she was at his side, scrutinizing it with her observant look that every Bene Gesserit woman had to find out if a person was lying or telling the truth just by seeing the body language expression that said individual had.

"My wife ..." Jessica noticed that Yueh's tone was melancholic when she spoke, distressed and sad about a personal loss. "You didn't get to know her. The Hark ..." The doctor's voice broke when he spoke the name of his enemies again.

"I am sorry," Jessica apologized, feeling guilty for investigating more about the personal medical problem. 'They killed her, in that I can be sure'

"No," Yueh replied. "I'm the one who should apologize. It's something I can't talk about it."

She kept silent, continuing her work of processing some other detail that she let out ... and found it.

'Hide something,' she told herself, noticing that Yueh's lips were trembling and getting wet. His gaze focused on the dark diamond that was on his forehead. 'But it has Imperial Conditioning. Guarantees his loyalty' She looked at the maids who were being processed by the detector, and noticed one that was moving.

Jessica described her as short, and older. She wore the traditional attire of the maids of the Grand Palace of Arrakeen, her face was wrinkled, gray hair collected with a black stick as a knot. And there were his eyes, those deep blue eyes without the least white, secret and mysterious, as if he wanted to tell her something when she walked and stood still and not moving.

Without her noticing, in a corner where no guard or servant is seen during the landing of the move, a white-black domestic cat watched them with a computer glow in her feline eyes, collecting everything that happened to be lying quietly.

Three dead bodies belonging to Harkonnen soldiers were sent to the medical room where Wellington Yueh would be responsible for saying it. They undressed them and put them on each stretcher, covered by the blanket of white cloth being embalmed to avoid the smell of the rigus mortis.

Yueh, dressed in a transparent suit when he had surgery, began to inspect the first body that was in the X-ray bed. The bronze mirror where the lifeless body of soldier Harkonnen was reflected had a lever with a viewfinder that allowed him to see the dead body of the enemy soldier.

He passed the magnifying glass down, and spotted a tiny object, almost like a lipstick in the region of the small intestine.

'My message. He's here' He prepared to make an incision in his abdomen with the scalpel at hand, but he had to stop when he heard the sound of footsteps coming towards the medical room.

Yueh moved an x-ray viewer in the head area just in time when the old figure of Thufir Hawat had appeared, wearing a dark wool coat that covered his uniform.

"More corpses of the enemy will arrive for your inspection, Dr. Yueh," the Mentat replied as he stopped at the north end of the bed. "You're good?"

"Yes, perfectly," Yueh lied, cursing internally for not showing a passive and serene expression when Mentat could detect him if he gave a nervous signal. He continued talking, trying to distract him. "Thank you, Thufir."

Thufir nodded his head in understanding, and then left where he had come from.

Seeing that he was alone, Yueh proceeded to use the scalpel in the area where the capsule was with the message.

He made the incision in the abdomen by sinking the leaf into the cold skin, as if trying to cut the richest part of the meat. He extracted the capsule with his gloved hand and proceeded to wash it in the cauldron that was on the table. He uncapped the capsule and proceeded to read the message.

His expression turned bleak when he understood what the action he had to do was, knowing maturely that it would lead to the death of all the people who welcomed him as a family member.

He had to do it, there was no other way but to continue with the plan ... even if it was necessary to carry the blame on his shoulders.

Around Lady Jessica, stacked in the corners of the great hall of Arrakeen, piled up in the open spaces, she was all her life, locked in trunks, packages, bags ... for the most part yet to open. She heard Guild unloaders carrying another cargo from the ship to the entrance.

Jessica was standing in the center of the room. She turned slowly, looking around the bas-reliefs that peeked in the shadows, the windows deeply carved into the thick walls. The gigantic anachronism of that room reminded him of the Hall of the Sisters at the Bene Gesserit School in Wallach IX. But at school the effect was warm and welcoming. Here, everything was hard stone.

Some architect had to dive deep into history to recreate those vaults and dark upholstery, she thought. The roof arch culminated two floors above it, with huge cross beams that, she was sure, transported to Arrakis at a fabulous cost. There was no planet in the system that possessed trees capable of providing such beams ... unless the beams were imitation wood.

She did not believe it.

That had been the residence of the government in the days of the Old Empire. The costs had not been very important then, long before the Harkonnen and their new Carthag megalopolis ... a place of bad taste and miserable two hundred kilometers to the northeast, beyond the Rugged Land. Leto had demonstrated his good judgment by choosing that place for government headquarters. Since his name, Arrakeen, sounded good, full of tradition. And it was a small city, easier to sanitize and defend.

He heard again the noise of the boxes that were unloaded at the entrance, and she sighed.

The portrait of Duke Leto's father was leaning against a cardboard box on his left. The cord that had attached the packaging hung on one side as frayed decoration. Jessica was still holding one end with her left hand. Next to the painting was the head of a dark green bull with multiple horns mounted on a plate of polished wood. The head was an island in a sea of crumpled papers. The plaque was resting on the ground, and the gleaming bull's muzzle pointed toward the ceiling as if the animal was preparing to mute its challenge to the echo-filled room.

Jessica wondered what compulsion had pushed her to unpack those two objects in the first place ... the head and the paint. I knew there was something symbolic in that action. Never, since that day when Duke Leto's envoys had bought her at school, had she felt so scared insecure.

The head and the picture.

They accentuated his confusion. She shuddered, throwing a glance at the narrow windows above her head. It was early afternoon, but at that latitude the sky looked black and cold ... much darker than the warm blue of Caladan. She felt nostalgic for her lost world.

She was so far from Caladan.

"Here we are!"

It was the voice of Duke Leto.

She turned, watching him advance in long strides under the huge vault of the entrance. His light green work uniform with the heraldic red hawk looked dirty and wrinkled.

"I was afraid you would have lost yourself in this horrible place"

"It's a cold house," she said, and observed her high height, her skin that reminded her of the green of the olive trees under a golden sun reflected in a blue water. There was a wood smoke in the gray of his eyes, but his face was that of a predator: sharp, all angles and straight.

A sudden fear clutched his chest. He had become so wild, so authoritarian since he had decided to obey the order of Emperor Padishah.

"The whole city seems cold," she continued.

"It's a small, dirty and dusty city of garrison," Leto admitted. "But we'll change that." He looked around. "This is a room reserved for public events and state ceremonies. I just took a look at some of the family apartments in the south wing. They are much more welcoming." He approached her and touched her arm, admiring her dignity.

And then he wondered once again who his unknown parents would have been ... a renegade house, perhaps? Members of royalty fallen out of favor? His Majesty suggested imperial blood.

Under the pressure of his gaze, she turned slightly, revealing her profile. And he observed that there were no outstanding details imposed on all its beauty. His face was oval under the cascade of his bronze hair. His eyes, somewhat distant, were green and clear like Caladan's sky in the morning. His nose was small, his mouth large and generous. His figure was elegant but discreet: tall, thin and with few but well formed curves. She remembered that the sisters of the school called her skinny, so at least her emissaries had informed her. But it was too simplified description. Jessica had brought a line of real beauty to the Atreides line. She was happy that Paul had been favored by that.

"Where is Paul?"

"Somewhere in the house, taking Dr. Yueh's lessons"

"Probably in the south wing," said the Duke, "but I had time to look." He watched Jessica, doubting. "I came here just to hang the key of Castel Caladan in this room"

She held her breath ... it was a definitive act of resignation. But it was not the time or place to seek comfort.

"I've seen our banner when we arrive"

Duke Leto towards his father's portrait.

"On some of these walls"

"No" The word was clear and definitive, cutting off any attempt at persuasion. But anyway, she had to try, even if it only served to confirm that she could not always convince him with female cunning.

"My lord, if only ..."

"My answer is still no. I confess I am guilty of an indulgence towards you for a lot of things, but it is not. I just passed precisely through the dining room and I observed that there are ..."

"My lord! I beg you"

"The choice is between your digestion and your ancestral dignity, honey," replied Duke Leto calmly. "We will hang it in the dining room"

Jessica sighed in frustration.

"Yes my lord"

"As soon as possible you can return to eat as usual in your rooms. I will demand that you occupy your position only on official occasions."

"Thank you, my lord," she replied in a uniform tone.

"And don't be so cold and formal with me! Thank me for never having married you, honey. Otherwise, your duty would have been to be at the table with me at lunchtime."

"Thufir has already installed the poison detector on the table," he continued. "But there is a portable one in your room"

"You anticipated this ... discrepancy," Jessica said sarcastically.

"Dear, but think also of your comfort. I have hired maids. They are local, but Thufir has selected them ... they are all Fremen"

"I know that," Jessica explained softly. "Dr. Yueh and I have inspected each of them by introducing themselves in the entrance hall. All of them have a formal and educated education. Thuir Hawat has done well to hire them for us. But ... is there anyone in whom can you trust?"

"Everyone hates the Harkonnen. You may want to stay with the housekeeper: the Shadout Mapes"

"Shadout?" Jessica tilted her head. "A Fremen title?"

"I have been told that it means "digwells", a word full of important implications here. It may not correspond to your idea of the ideal servant, but Thufir speaks very well of it, based on a Duncan report. Both are convinced that want to serve ... and especially you"

"To me?" Jessica questioned.

"The Fremen have known that you are Bene Gesserit. And there are legends about the Bene Gesserit."

'The Missioneria Protectiva' Jessica thought, remembering the explanation of the Reverend Mother Gaius Helen Mohiam about sending the religious arm to calm the natives of Arrakis and make them believe that each Bene Gesserit are priestesses consecrated to God in spreading his word. 'There is no place to escape them'

"Does this mean that Duncan has succeeded?" she asked curiously. "Will the Fremen be our allies?"

"There is nothing specific yet," Duke Leto said. "Duncan believes that before they want to observe us a little. Anyway, they have promised not to plunder the neighboring towns during the truce. It is a more important achievement than it may seem. Thuir has told me that the Fremen are a huge thorn in the side of the Harkonnen, who keep the scope of their incursions secret. They did not want to ask Emperor Padishah for help so that they would not know the ineffectiveness of the Harkonnen military forces"

"A Fremen housekeeper," Jessica muttered, changing the subject as she returned to the subject of the Shadout Mapes.

"Do not be fooled by the appearance of these people," said the Duke. "They are very strong and deeply vital. I think they are precisely what we need."

"It's a dangerous game," Jessica said uncertainly.

"Let's not start over with this," he said.

She forced a smile.

"We are in this, there is no doubt about it." She concentrated on a quick return to calm exercise: two inspirations, ritual thinking, and then: "When I assign the rooms, is there one in particular that you want me to reserve for you?"

"Someday you have to teach me how you get this," said the Duke, "how to erase all the worries of your mind and return to practical things. It must be some Bene Gesserit trick."

"It's a female trick," she said proudly.

He smiled.

"Well, let's go back to the room assignment: find me a large room near my bedroom. There's going to be a lot more paperwork here than in Caladan. A room for the guard, of course. This will be enough. Don't worry about the safety of the house. Thufir's men have tracked it thoroughly"

"I'm sure they have." she specified.

Leto looked at his watch.

"And check that all our watches are set at Arrakeen's local time. I have assigned a technician to take care of it. He will be here shortly." He brushed a strand of hair that had fallen on his forehead. "Now I must return to the landing area. The second shipment will arrive from one moment to another."

"Couldn't Thufir take care of it, my lord? You seem so tired ..."

"The good Thufir is even busier than me. You know that this planet is infested with the intrigues of the Harkonnen. In addition, I must convince the best spice hunters to stay. With the change of fief, you know, they are free. to choose ... and the planetologist and a young man that Emperor Padishah and Landsraad have designated both as Judge of the Change cannot be bought. They have been given the option to choose freely. Almost eight hundred expert men wait to get on the ferry of the spice, and a Guild charge is awaiting them"

"My lord ..." Jessica broke off, and then spoke, choked, "... did you say a young? ... Is there a young who acts as Judge of the Change?"

"Of course it is, honey," Leto said, laughing out loud. "I was also surprised when Thufir informed me after he arrived in Arrakis. He is the same age as Paul, but a few years older than him ..."

"Could you describe me as the young, my dear," Jessica replied, somewhat confused and dismayed, thinking that it was possible that he was the same young who appeared in Paul's dream as a kind of anomaly ... it may even be possible Let him be accompanied by his cat.

"His height is that of a teenager between seventeen years" began to tell Duke Leto. "He has dark curly hair with a ruffled touch, and his eyes are a dark gray. He is accompanied by his pet; a black and white cat named Morgana. He! It's funny that his pet has a female name if one arrives. to confuse that it is really female, but it is male "

"... I see" Jessica forced a tone of good humor, suppressing the terrifying shudder that ran through her knowing that the young mystery existed. Paul's prophetic dream had been fulfilled with the perception of seeing the veil of the future. Trying to regain calm so that her lover didn't notice, Jessica spoke: "Does the boy have a name?"

"Ren Amamiya" replied the Duke. "That's his name"

"Ren Amamiya ..." Jessica repeated, trying to find a hidden meaning in the name of the identified mysterious young man who appeared as an anomaly in her son's dream. When he pronounced it mentally again, she remembered that the pronunciation was from Richese; whose culture and custom were identical to the inhabitants of Ix, although of different linguistics. At Bene Gesserit School it was important that all female students should know about all the cultural dialects that made up humanity, and one of those dialects was Richese, or Nippon, according to the ancient origin of the Old Earth. The way of writing of the inhabitants of Ix and Richese was some paths called "kanjis" that could be represented in names and objects with the use of two or more to mean a complete word. It would be frustrating to decipher it right now, but I had more questions for Leto. "Do you think there is a possibility that he can freely choose to help us?"

"In that I also asked Thufir about his alignment, and it seems he is determined to be on our side."

Jessica looked surprised.

"Will he help us? Are you sure?"

"I can put all my trust in the Mentat that has served the House of Atreides for five generations, although there is always the need that one must be sure to have the second opinion of a Bene Gesserit"

"When can I meet him?" Jessica told her, hiding her imperative anxiety of being face to face with the boy.

"In the morning dinner where important people will come as another method of getting more allies," Leto replied. "That is all I have to tell you, since I also have a strategic meeting pending with all the staff. I will send a servant or a guard so that Paul comes with me and knows how is the procedure that his father is always pending"

Jessica watched as he said goodbye with a confident countenance when closing the door and being submerged in a faint silence. Leto's voice rang in the hall, imperative and dismissive, in the tone with which he spoke with the servants when he was in a hurry:

"Lady Jessica is in the lobby. Meet her immediately."

Jessica faced the portrait of Leto's father. It had been performed by a famous artist, Albe, when the Old Duke was middle-aged. He had been painted a matador's dress, with a magenta cape hanging from his left arm. The face looked young, almost as much as Leto's today, and with the same hawk expression, the same gray look, and his name was honored to name his son. She clenched her fists against her sides, looking at the portrait with hate.

"Damn! Damn! Damn you!"

"What are your orders, Noble Born?"

It was a woman's voice, musical like a tense string.

Jessica turned, hiding her grief, and met the same short-stature woman in the main hall along with the other maids who had looked at him mysteriously when she moved into the second row of maids.

The woman bowed her head respectfully, pronouncing her name politely.

"They call me the Shadout Mapes, Noble Born. What are your orders?"

"You can call me my Lady," Jessica corrected seriously. "I was not born noble. I am the titular concubine of Duke Leto"

Again that strange nod, and the woman looked up at Jessica with an insidious response:

"Is there then a woman?"

"There is not, nor has there ever been. I am the only ... companion of the Duke, the mother of his designated heir"

As he spoke, Jessica laughed to himself for the pride that conveyed his words. 'What did Saint Augustin say? The mind orders itself and finds resistance. Yes ... lately he finds a greater resistance. I should calmly withdraw into myself'

A strange scream rang out there on the road. A repeated shout:

"Suu-suu-suuk!" and then: "khut-eigh!" and then again: "Suu-suu-suuk!"

"What is that?" Jessica questioned. "I've heard that scream on the street several times this morning"

"He is only a water seller, my Lady. But he has no interest for you. The tanks of this dwelling contain fifty thousand liters, and they are always full." She bowed her head and looked at her clothes. "See it, my Lady, I don't need to take my stillsuit here!" She smiled. "And I have not died!"

Jessica hesitated, wanting to ask that Fremen woman some questions, feeling the need to guide her. But the most urgent was to put some order in the castle. Anyway, the idea that in that place water was a sign of wealth puzzled her.

"My husband has told me that your title is Shadout," said Jessica authoritatively and superiorly. "It's a very old word"

"Do you know the ancient languages?" Mapes asked in amazement.

"Languages are the first Bene Gesserit teaching," Jessica intoned sternly, looking authoritative. "I know Bhotani-jib and Chakobsa, all the languages of hunters"

Mapes nodded.

"As the legend says"

'Why am I representing this comedy? But Bene Gesserit roads are always winding and compulsive,' she thought, frustratingly.

"I know the Dark Things and the ways of the Great Mother," said Jessica. She read, in the aspects of Mapes, in each of her gestures, the most revealing signs. "Miseces prejia" she spoke in the Chakobsa language. "Andal you're pear! Trada cik buscakri miseces perakri"

Mapes stepped back, ready to flee.

"I know a lot of things," Jessica continued dramatically. "I know that you have fathered children, that you have lost loved ones, that you have hidden yourself out of fear and that you have committed violence and that you will commit more violence again. I know many things."

"I didn't mean to offend you, my Lady," Mapes said softly.

"You talk about legends and you look for an answer. Beware of the answers you can find. I know that you have come here prepared for violence, with a gun in your bodice"

"My Lady, I ..."

"There is a remote possibility that you will be able to shed the blood of my life," Jessica said, "but if you did it you would cause more damage than you can imagine in your craziest terrors. There are worse things than death, you know it ... even for a whole town "

"My lady!" Implored Mapes. He seemed about to fall to his knees. "This weapon is a gift for you if you can prove that you are Her"

"And the instrument of my death if I can't prove it," Jessica corroborated. She waited in the apparent calm that made the Bene Gesserit as terrible as in combat.

Slowly, Mapes reached into the neck of her dress and took out a dark sheath. A black hilt, deeply engraved to secure the grip, emerged from it. She took the holster with one hand and the hilt with the other extracted a leaf of a milky white color. She brandished it above his head and the blade seemed to glow with its own light. It was double-edged, like a kindjal, and the blade would be about twenty-centimeters long.

"Do you know this, my Lady?"

'It couldn't be anything else,' Jessica told herself, 'that Arrakis's fabulous crys knife, a blade that had never left that planet and that other parts was a rumor and a mystery.'

"It's a crys"

"Don't pronounce it lightly," said Mapes. "Do you know the meaning of this name?"

'This is a double-edged question. Here is the reason why this Fremen wanted to serve with me, that is why she asked me so many questions. My response may precipitate violence or ... what? It requires an answer from me: the meaning of this knife. They call it Shadout in the Chakobsa language, it is the "maker of death." It is getting impatient. I have to answer now. Delaying an answer is as dangerous as a false answer.'

"He's a maker ..." Jessica began to say, but Mapes cut her off by letting out a kind of scream that made her shiver in surprise.

"Aiiiieeeee!" It was the sound of pain and relief. She was trembling so violently that a knife blade created reflections throughout the room.

Jessica waited, motionless. She was going to say that the knife was a death maker and add the old tongue, but now all the senses warned her with the intensity of her training capable of revealing the meaning of the least muscle shudder.

The keyword was maker.

'Maker? Maker was then'

However, Mapes was holding the knife as if he were willing to use it.

"How could you think that I, knowing the mysteries of the Great Mother, was not going to know the maker?"

"My Lady, when one has lived so long with the prophecy, the moment of revelation is a shock"

Jessica thought about the prophecy ... the Shari-a and all the Panoplia Propheticus; a Bene Gesserit of the Missioneria Protectiva had been sent there many centuries before; He had long since died, there was no doubt about it, but she had fulfilled her purpose: the protective legends solidly implanted in that town for the day that a Bene Gesserit needed them.

The day had come when the Atreides received the fief.

Mapes returned his knife to its holster, and said:

"This is an unstable leaf, my Lady. Always carry it with you. If it stays more than a week away from the flesh, it will begin to disintegrate. It is a Shai-Hulud tooth, it will remain with you for as long as it lasts."

Jessica held out her right hand and risked saying:

"Mapes, you have returned the sheet to its case without having it marked by blood"

With a stifled exclamation, Mapes put the sheathed knife in Jessica's hand and tore her bodice.

"Take the water of my life!"

Jessica removed the sheet from its holster. She pointed it directly at Mapes, and saw in her eyes a panic greater than death.

'A poison on the tip?' she wondered. She lifted the blade, tracing a delicate scratch on the left side of the housekeeper's side with the blade side. A few drops of blood arose that stopped almost immediately. Ultra-fast coagulation, Jessica thought. 'A mutation to conserve moisture in your body?'

She put the sheet in its sheath, and said:

"Button your dress, Shadout Mapes"

The housekeeper obeyed, trembling. His eyes without white stared at her.

"You are ours. You are Her"

At the entrance the noise was heard again to unload the packages. Mapes took the sheathed knife and slipped it into Jessica's bodice.

"Anyone who sees that sheet must be purified or killed!" the housekeeper growled. "You know it, my Lady"

'I just knew now,' Jessica thought with all the melodrama that was happening.

The downloaders, out there, left if they passed through the Great Hall.

Mapes regained his composure, and said:

"He who is impure and has seen the crys cannot leave Arrakis alive. Do not forget, my Lady. A crys has been entrusted." She took a deep breath. "Now things must take their course. Nothing can be rushed." She looked around the boxes and packages stacked around her. "And here there is a lot of work to let time pass"

Jessica hesitated. "Things must take their course." A typical phrase that came directly from the spell reserves of the Missioneria Protectiva ... the coming of a Reverend Mother who would free Arrakis from the imperial yoke.

"What is the first thing you want me to do, my Lady?" Mapes said quietly.

The instinct pushed Jessica to respond in a casual tone.

"The painting of the Old Duke, this one, must be placed on one of the walls of the dining room. The head of the bull on the opposite wall"

Mapes approached the bull's head.

"It had to be a huge animal to have such a big head." The housekeeper leaned over her. "Should I clean it first, my Lady?"

"No," Jessica replied seriously.

"But the dirt has been embedded in the horns."

"It's not dirt, Mapes. It's the blood of our Duke's father. Those horns were treated with a transparent fixative a few hours after this animal killed the Old Duke."

Mapes stood up.

"Eh?"

"It's just blood," Jessica said simply. "Very old blood. Find someone to help you hang this up. Those damn things are heavy."

"Do you think a little blood impresses me?" Mapes asked. "I come from the desert, and I have seen blood in abundance.

"Yes ... I'm convinced of it," Jessica said.

"And sometimes that blood was mine," said Mapes. "Much more blood than your chafe has produced."

"Would you have preferred it cut more deeply?"

"Oh, no! The body water is already scarce, and there is no need to waste it spreading it through the air. You have acted correctly."

And Jessica, through the words and the way of saying them, captured the profound implications of that phrase, "body water." She felt again the oppressive sensation of the importance of water in Arrakis.

"On which side of the dining room should I hang these beautiful things, my Lady?" Mapes asked.

Always practical, this Mapes, Jessica thought.

"Use your good judgment, Mapes. It really doesn't matter."

"As you wish, my Lady." Mapes bowed and began to free his head from the remains of the packaging. "So he killed an old duke, you say?" she murmured softly.

"Do I call someone to help you?" Jessica asked.

"I will manage myself, my Lady."

'Yes, he will manage,' Jessica thought. 'That is something that Fremen really possesses: the will to finish what he undertakes.' Jessica felt the cold contact of the crys in her bodice, and thought of the long chain of intrigues Bene Gesserit, and the new link that had just been forged there. Thanks to that chain, he had managed to survive a deadly crisis. "You can't rush anything," Mapes had said. And yet, the rush dominated that place, filling Jessica with apprehension. And not even all the preparations of the Missionaria Protectiva, not even the thorough inspections made by Thufir Hawat in that huge cluster of stones that was the castle, had managed to dispel their dark omens.

"When you're done with this, start unpacking the packages," Jessica said. "One of the arresters is in the main entrance with all the keys, and will tell you where to put everything. Have me give you the keys and the list. If you have to ask me any questions, I'll be in the south wing."

"As you wish, my Lady."

Jessica walked away, thinking to herself: 'Thufir will have judged this residence as safe, but there is something threatening in this place. I feel it.' An urgent need to corroborate the entire interior of the castle made her leave the place and go to inspect each corner for a possible secret entrance, leaving the housekeeper with her corresponding work.

"It's She, there's no doubt," she murmured. "Poor woman"

Paul had woken up from his rest in regaining his strength from the arduous combat training with Gurney in Caladan. As he had promised himself that a nap would help him recover physically, he decided to do so in his room selected by his father where he earned his due during the landing of the move in the palace.

His attention went to the carved headboard of the bed: a false headboard fixed on the wall and hiding the controls of the room. It was a flying fish carved out of wood with dark waves beneath it. Paul knew that, by squeezing the only visible eye of the fish, he operated the room's suspension lamps. One of the waves, when turned, controlled the ventilation. Another regulated the temperature.

Gently, Paul sat on the bed. A high bookshop occupied the wall on the left. Turning it on one of its sides, it revealed a small back room with drawers on one of its sides. The door handle would have been outside in the shape of the ornithopter's joystick.

The room seemed to have been designed to seduce him.

The room and that planet.

He thought of the bookfilm that Yueh had shown him ... "Arrakis: The Experimental Botanical Station of His Imperial Majesty's Desert." It was an old bookfilm, prior to the discovery of the spice. A swarm of names fluttered in his mind, each with his photograph thanks to the book's mnemonic impulses: saguaro, donkey bush, date palm, sand verbena, sunset primrose, barrel cactus, incense bush, tree smoke, creosote bush ... mimetic fox, desert hawk, kangaroo mouse ...

Names and images arising from man's earthly past ... and many of which could not be found anywhere in the galaxy, except Arrakis.

Paul slipped out of the bed, heading for the bookstore that opened in the back room. He stopped and turned when he heard a noise behind him. The size of the head of the bed leaned forward. Paul remained motionless, and this immobility saved his life.

From the inside of the head a cylinder that shared similarity with a medical syringe and whose description was no more than five centimeters long slipped. Paul recognized him immediately: a hunter-seeker, a murder weapon that every child of noble royal blood learned to recognize from a young age. The dangerous and fine metal needle, directed by an eye and a hand that were in the immediate vicinity. The needle pierced you in the living flesh and then made its way along the nervous system to the nearest vital organ.

The hunter-seeker rose, turned through the room, and returned to his point of origin.

His knowledge about the hunter-seeker limitations passed through his mind like lightning: the weak suspension field distorted the vision of the transmitting eye. With no other light source than ambient light, the operator had to rely on movement and attack everything that moved. The shield was on the bed. A laser gun could knock him down, but they were expensive and delicate weapons that needed constant maintenance, and if they stumbled upon an activated shield, there was a risk of a pyrotechnic explosion. The Atreides trusted their body shields and their abilities.

Now Paul had plunged into a catatonic immobility, knowing that he had only to rely on his ability to face danger.

The hunter-seeker rose to half a meter. It continued to oscillate in the plot of shadows and clarity of the window, probing the room.

'I must seize him,' thought Paul. 'But the suspension field will make it slippery. I must hold it very strong'

To his surprise, when the object turned towards the bed, a cat had just appeared on the south side of the bed, and with rapid speed, he threw himself towards the murderous weapon, gripping the cylindrical edge with his jaw when he pounced.

Seeing that the object was trying to stay suspended in the air by the weight managed by the domestic feline that had mysteriously come to his aid, Paul grabbed the hunter-seeker of the cat's jaw quickly, and crushed the tip with the needle in the wall near its northeast side, destroying it completely.

Paul sat on his bed, letting out a deep groan and pulling sweat from his forehead. His heart kept beating at the adrenaline that ran through the moment of tension that had passed. It was fortunate that the cat had appeared at the right time when the hunter-seeker turned to the right in search of seismic activity of any movement.

"Thank you, it seems that I owe you one for helping me," Paul thanked him, and the cat returned the nod with a nod, sitting on the surface of his bed.

'Where did it come from? I don't remember that Arrakis had cats'. Paul studied the animal, intrigued by his strange appearance that had come out under the bed when the hunter-seeker emerged from the head.

When he detailed his fur, he stayed dry, his gaze very fixed and petrified like a statue: black with white, a yellow strap around his neck, and intense blue eyes.

'No ... it can't be possible! No way!' He was startled internally, but his mind made him land in the reality that he was in front of the true cat he had seen in his dreams that had the same fur and the same feline face ... It was not an illusion, or that the Previous owners would have forgotten that one of their pets was escaped, but it was really happening.

"Who you are?" Paul demanded, still intrigued and overwhelmed by his sudden appearance.

The cat got up from the bed and headed towards the head, putting both front legs on the wooden fish, and began to move them in an excavation gesture.

Paul looked at him for a minute, and understood the gesture he was making: the operator from the other side.

The door to the room opened, and the figure of an older woman of short stature dressed in the maids' attire.

"Who are you?" Paul repeated again, but this time to the old woman.

"I am the Shadout Mapes, the housekeeper," the woman introduced herself with a bow and a polite voice. "His father sent me to look for him. There is a group of men waiting for him in the lobby to escort you" Mapes observed the damaged hunter-seeker and the feline that sniffed the head. "I have heard of that thing, they are very deadly when you make noise, and it seems that the animal has saved him"

"Of course he did," Paul said. "He appeared under my bed when he grabbed the hunter-seeker. Whose cat is it?"

"He owns the second Judge of the Change who was appointed by the Empire, and is staying in Arrakeen"

Paul was stunned, feeling like a chill ran through his body ... feeling that the second Judge of the Change was the teenager of his dream. 'There is no doubt that there is coincidence and chance ... all this is real ... all this is really happening'

"How did you know where to find me?"

"Her mother told me. I found her on the stairs leading to the strange chamber, in the hallway," she pointed to her right. "Your father's men are waiting."

'They must be Thufir's men,' he thought. 'We have to discover the operator of this object'

He got up from the bed, just like the cat did when he jumped down.

"Go meet them," Paul replied. "Inform them that I have taken a hunter-seeker in my room and that they should find the operator. That they immediately register the palace and the adjacent grounds. They know how to do it. The operator must surely be a stranger among us."

"Before I follow your orders, young master," Mapes said, "I must clear the road between us. You have placed a heavy load of water on me, and I am not sure I can bear it. But we Fremen pay our debts. "They are white or black. And we know there is a traitor among yours. We cannot say who he is, but we are sure that he exists. Perhaps it was his hand that guided this meat cutter."

Paul assimilated that in silence: a traitor.

Before he could speak, the housekeeper had turned and headed back toward the entrance.

He went to call her, but there was something about his attitude that made him think he wouldn't like it. She had told him what he knew and, now, he was following his orders. The house would be invaded by Hawat's men in a minute. His mind remembered some fragments of the conversation: the strange camera. He looked to his left, in the direction pointed by her. 'We Fremen. So it was Fremen.' He paused for his mnemonic vision to register the pattern of his appearance in his memory: dark, wrinkled face, totally blue eyes, no white. He applied the label: The Shadout Mapes.

The cat meowed, and Paul saw the animal waving its head toward the shield belt next to the bed.

"Thank you" he thanked him again, taking it and putting himself around his pants. "Are you going with me?"

The cat nodded, walking outward open, followed by Paul closing the door behind.

Around the south wing, Jessica discovered a spiral metal staircase that ended in an oval door. She looked into the hall, and back to the door.

'Oval?' she wondered. 'What a strange door to a house'

Under the spiral staircase you could see windows and, behind it, the sunset. The long shadows extended to the hall. She turned her attention to the stairs. The strong light of dry land.

Jessica put a hand on the handrail and started to climb. The handrail was cold under his wet palm. He stopped at the door, noting that there was no handle, but only a slight depression at the door where the handle should have been. 'I don't think it's a palm lock,' she told herself.

A palm lock must conform to the shape of a particular hand and the lines of your palm. However, it looked like a palm lock. And she knew several ways to open a palm lock ... she had learned them at school.

Jessica looked behind her to be sure she was not observed, rested her palm on the depression of the door, turned her head and saw Mapes moving towards her at the bottom of the stairs.

"There are some men in the great hall: they say they have been sent by the Duke to escort the young master Paul," said Mapes. "They carry the ducal seal and the guard has identified them."

She looked at the door, then at Jessica.

'Mapes is prudent,' Jessica thought. 'It's a good sign'

"It's in the fifth room on this side of the lobby, a small bedroom," Jessica said. "If you have trouble waking him up, call Dr. Yueh who is in the next room. Paul may need a tonic injection."

Mapes directed another penetrating glance at the oval door, and Jessica detected hatred in her expression. Before Jessica could ask him about the door and what it was hiding, Mapes turned and hurried through the lobby.

'Thufir has inspected this whole place,' Jessica thought. 'There can be nothing terrible in there.' She pushed the door. It opened inward, revealing a small room with another oval door on the other side. The other door had a steering wheel as a handle.

'A watertight gate!' She looked down and saw a fallen shoe on the floor of the small room. She wore the personal brand of Thufir Hawat.

'I had to keep the door open,' she thought. 'Someone probably hit it and accidentally knocked it down, and the outer door closed with the palm lock. She crossed the threshold and entered the small room. 'Why a waterproof gate in the house?' And suddenly she thought of exotic creatures isolated there in special climates.

Special climates!

It seemed logical in Arrakis, where even the driest plants in other places had to be watered. The door behind him began to close. She stopped her and blocked her with the shoe left by Thufir. Then she turned to the inner door with the steering wheel, and then she saw a tiny inscription engraved on the metal on the handle. She recognized the words in Galach and read:

"Oh, man! Here is an adorable portion of God's Creation; look, and learn to love the perfection of Your Supreme Friend"

Jessica pushed the wheel with all her weight. He tilted to the left and the door opened. A light breeze brushed her cheek, stroking her hair. She noticed a change in the air, a more intense smell. He opened the door completely, discovering a mass of vegetation illuminated by a golden light.

'A yellow sun?' she wondered. And then: 'Filter glass!'

She moved forward, and the door closed behind her.

"A greenhouse" she whispered. It was surrounded by potted plants and shrubs. She recognized a mimosa, a flowering quince, a probegi, a full of flowers still in bud, a striated akarso of green and white ... roses ... Even roses!

She leaned down to breathe the fragrance of a group of pink flowers, then sat up and looked around.

A rhythmic sound invaded his senses.

She pushed aside a wall of leaves and looked at the center of the room. She discovered there a low fountain, with the fluted pylon. The rhythmic noise was caused by a trickle of water that rose in an arc and then fell drumming on the metallic bottom of a pylon.

Jessica was in a state of increased perception, and began a methodical inspection of the perimeter of the room. It seemed to be about ten meters on its side. Because of its location at the end of the lobby and some subtle differences in its construction, he deduced that it had been added to that wing of the building long after the original construction.

She stopped on the south side of the room, before the large filter glass surface, looking around. Each useful space in the room was occupied by exotic plants typical of humid climates. Something moved in the greenery. She tensed, then relaxed when she saw the simple automatic servok with a hose and an irrigation arm. On the irrigation arm he carried a nebulizer, which projected a thin film of water near his cheek. The arm withdrew, and Jessica could see the watered plant: an arborescent fern.

There was water throughout the room ... on a planet where water was the most precious juice of life. So much wasted water made her immobilize, stunned.

She looked out to the yellow sun through the filter. It hung suspended from the sky, on a jagged horizon of peak rocks that formed part of the huge chain of rocky mountains known as the Shield Wall.

'Filter glass,' she thought. Transform a white sun into something softer and more familiar. 'Who has been able to conceive such a place? ¿Leto? It would be worth it to surprise me with such a gift, but he has not had time. And he has much more important problems to think about.' She recalled the report that many Arrakeen houses had sealed doors and windows with sealed gates to conserve and condense internal moisture. Leto had said that, as a deliberate declaration of power and wealth, that house ignored such precautions. Doors and windows were sealed only against the ubiquitous dust.

But that room implied a much more significant status than the absence of water seals on the exterior doors. She calculated that this pleasant room used as much water as necessary to support a thousand personnel in Arrakis ... possibly more.

Jessica moved along the glass wall, continuing her exploration of the room. She moved to a metal surface that she observed near the fountain, a table on which there was a notebook and a stylet, partially hidden by a wide sheet that hung over them. She approached the table, saw the controls left by Thufir Hawat, and studied the message written on the pad:

"TO LADY JESSICA: May this place give you as much pleasure as it has given me. Allow this room to remind you of a lesson we have learned from the same teachers: the proximity of a desirable thing tends toward indulgence. There the danger lurks. With my best wishes, LADY MARGOT FENRING."

Jessica nodded, remembering that Leto had referred to the previous Emperor's envoy in Arrakis as Count Fenring. But the message contained in that note demanded all their attention, since the words had been chosen in such a way that they informed that the author was another Bene Gesserit. A bitter thought touched Jessica for a moment: The Count married his Lady.

And simultaneously, while she thought about it, she began looking for the hidden message. She had to be there. The visible note contained a key phrase that each Bene Gesserit, unless inhibited by a School Interdiction, she had to transmit to another Bene Gesserit when conditions required: "There the danger lurks there." Jessica ran her fingertips over the pad, looking for key holes. Nothing. She inspected the edge with her fingers. Nothing. She left him where he had found him again, feeling a sense of urgency.

'Something in the pad's position?'

But Thufir had inspected the room, and no doubt he had moved the pad. She looked at the large sheet on top of the pad. The sheet! She ran her fingers along the bottom of its surface, following the edge, along the petiole. There was! His fingers detected the subtle points in code, reading the message as he ran through them:

"Your son and the Duke are in immediate danger. A bedroom has been designed to attract your son. The H have filled him with deadly traps, so that all are discovered except one, which will escape all detections." Jessica fought the urge to run to Paul: she had to read the message until the end. His fingers quickly traced the points: "I do not know the exact nature of the threat, but it has something to do with a bed. The threat to your Duke is the betrayal of a faithful companion or a lieutenant. The plan of the H plans to offer you the gift of one of his favorites. As far as I can tell, this botanical garden is safe. Sorry I can't tell you more. My sources are few, since my Count is not paid by H. Hurriedly, MF."

Jessica dropped the sheet and turned to run to Paul. At that moment, the gate opened. Paul jumped in, carrying something in his right hand, and slammed the door behind him. What she called his attention was that his son was accompanied by a domestic cat.

"Paul!" Jessica took him by the shoulders, looking at the hand and the cat. "What is that, and what does a cat do here?"

"A hunter-seeker. The cat took it when it was suspended in the air; I grabbed it and I broke the tip, but I want to be very sure. The water will have to short-circuit it."

"Immerse it!"

He obeyed.

"Now release it. Leave it in the water and remove your hand."

Paul took out his hand, shook the water from it and looked at the inert metal in the fountain. Jessica cut a leaf and with that stem moved the killer needle.

I was dead.

She dropped her hand in the water and looked at Paul, then at the cat. His son examined the room, as did the cat, but his son's examination was something he knew ... the Bene Gesserit Way.

"Paul," Jessica spoke, calling her attention. "Tell me: where did that cat come from?"

"He came out under my bed, mother," explained his son. "I didn't know where he had come from, but Shadout Mapes told me he was the mascot of the second Judge of the Change sent by the Emperor"

"Ren Amamiya ..." Jessica murmured, tense with revelation. "The name of the Judge of the Change is Ren Amamiya. Paul, your father gave me the description of him, and with rope with the same appearance as what you saw in your dream" She turned her gaze to the cat. "The fur and the leash also agree with the pet of the dream. His name is Morgana"

"Morgana?" Paul said, framing, and staring at the cat. "Then it's your name, isn't it? What a beautiful name you have for a female"

The cat, Morgana gave a meow in thanks to the flattery.

"You're wrong, son," Jessica corrected. "Morgana is male"

"Ehh? What?!" Paul released, surprised. "Is the cat male?"

"In that also your father found out about the gender of the pet; he took it with enough humor, although it is the decision of the owner if he wanted to call it a by a different name. Perhaps it has a meaning when he gave it that name"

In Paul's mind, a number of ancient languages different from the imperial galactic language came to mind, and one of them said "born of the sea," or, "that which comes from the seashore." Something had to do with those words, but he decided to change the subject.

"The Shadout Mapes believes that there is a traitor among us. Morgana has just perceived that the hunter-seeker was hidden in the head of my bed; the operator must be hidden in any area inside the palace"

Jessica had to suppress the fear that made her shiver, remembering the words about the betrayal of a faithful companion or a lieutenant ... But who would it be?

There was a knock at the door, using the code of Thufir's men.

"Go ahead," Jessica called.

The door opened, and a tall man wearing the Atreides uniform with the Thufir Hawat badge on the cap entered the room.

"You are here, sir," said the man. "The housekeeper has told us that we will find him here" he looked around the room. "We found a burial mound in the basement and a man hiding in it. He had control of the device."

"I want to attend your interrogation," Jessica replied authoritatively.

"Sorry, my Lady, the man had killed himself when we found him"

"Is there nothing that can identify you?" Jessica asked, feeling frustrated at the loss of a good source of information in knowing who the mysterious traitor is.

"We still haven't found anything, my Lady"

"Was he a native of Arrakis?" Paul asked, joining the conversation, while the Morgana cat scratched lazily.

Jessica inclined her head approvingly at the skill of the question.

"He looked like a native," said the soldier. "They had put him in the mound more than a month ago, it seems, to wait for our arrival. The stones and mortar were intact yesterday, when we inspected the place. I put my reputation on it."

"Nobody doubts his meticulousness," said Jessica.

"No one, except myself, my Lady. We should have used sonic probes."

"I presume they are doing this right now," Paul added.

"Of course, sir"

"Let my father know that I will be late"

"Immediately, sir." The soldier looked at Jessica. "Hawat's orders are that under such circumstances the young master be kept in a safe place." His eyes scanned the room. "Is this place?"

"I'm right to know that this place is safe," Jessica said seriously. "Both Hawat and I thoroughly inspect it"

"Then I will stand guard outside, my Lady, until we have inspected the entire interior once more"

He leaned down, touched his cap in greeting to both of them, turned and closed the door behind him.

Paul broke the sudden silence.

"Wouldn't it be better to inspect the rooms ourselves later? Your eyes could catch things that others have ignored. Morgana could also help us."

"Paul," Jessica spoke sincerely with tangency. "We cannot incorporate the animal into our affairs. I know that domestic animals have a nose developed in detecting signatures and odors that humans cannot. It would be a risk that something would happen to him."

"But, mother," Paul replied. "Morgana just saved my life when he caught the hunter-seeker. We can use his help."

"I'm not sure if it's a good idea, Paul. We still don't know which side is the second Judge of the Change."

"But the cat saved my life"

"I know, Paul, I know," Jesscia said with a sigh. "I know they both made their appearances at the right time when we arrived in Arrakis, but I need to meet Ren Amamiya if he is on our side or against us"

Paul sighed, but he understood with a nod.

"... It's ok ... But what about the traitor? The note said it's ours"

"I can't be sure about that," she admitted with a nod.

"Anyway, I don't think it's Thufir. Maybe Yueh?"

"Not is neither a lieutenant nor a companion," she replied. "And I can assure you that he hates the Harkonnen as deep as we do." But Jessica did not forget the nervous gesture of her countenance when he inspected the maids with her narcotic detector; That would not let it happen.

Paul turned his attention to the mountains, thinking: 'And it can't be Gurney ... or Duncan. Maybe one of the second lieutenants? Impossible. They all belong to families that have been loyal to us for generations ... for excellent reasons.'

Jessica ran a hand over her forehead, feeling her own fatigue. 'There are so many dangers here!' She looked out towards the yellow landscape through the filters, studying it. Beyond the ducal grounds there was a plain that housed a warehouse of merchandise, surrounded by a high barrier: rows of spice silos protected by numerous watchtowers erected on long sustainers that gave them the appearance of huge spiders on the prowl. She could see at least twenty similar enclosures, full of silos, extending to almost the limits of the Shield Wall ... silos after silos, multiplying the entire width of the esplanade.

Slowly, the filtered sun sank behind the horizon. The stars began to shine. One of them, very low above the horizon, stands out from the others, blinked with a clear, precise rhythm: blink-blinkblink-blink-blink-blink ...

Paul moved to his side, in the shadows of the room. Morgana also witnessed that, with a watchful eye.

But Jessica concentrated on that unique luminous star, noting that it was too low, that it should shine on the very edge of the Shield Wall.

Someone was making signs!

She tried to decipher the message, but it was issued in a code she didn't know.

Other lights lit on the plain beneath the mountains: small yellow lights scattered in the dark blue. And another light to his left grew in intensity and began to glow, turning on and off quickly in the direction of the mountains ... very quickly: long flash, blink, flash!

And it became extinct. The false star also disappeared immediately.

'Signs ...' Jessica felt invaded by a premonition.

'Why are they using lights to make signals along the plain?' She asked herself internally. 'Why don't they use the normal communications network?'

The answer was obvious: any communication could be intercepted by the agents of Duke Leto. The light signals meant that those messages had been exchanged between their enemies ... between Harkonnen agents.

They knocked on the door behind them, and heard the voice of Hawat's man.

"Everything is ready, sir ... my Lady. It is time to lead the young master to his father."

All had gathered in the spacious meeting room that Duke Leto Atreides had orchestrated under emergency measures on the events that had taken place in the residential residence of Arrakeen.

"My lord," Thufir Hawat introduced himself in a solemn and guilty voice, "I would like to submit my resignation to resign ..."

"Silence, Thufir!" Leto argued severely. "Stop behaving like this! Your mistake has been to underestimate the Harkonnen. Those simple tricks have used a simple trick."

Gurney, who was sitting in his chair with two officers next to his brown desk, grunted and posed a thoughtful attitude about how his friend and partner was making a miscalculation.

"Paul has survived by your training" continued Duke Leto. "In addition to that he was saved by the second Judge of the Change's mascot that had appeared at the right time in his room"

Everyone agreed with Leto's statement; the cat, Morgana, was in Paul's lap with a half-sleepy position, being indifferent to the praise of all the military personnel of the Atreides.

"Sit down," Duke Leto ordered, and Thufir followed the order, sitting in the last chair with a communications radio.

"Thufir" continued Duke Leto in a deep murmur, "there is a traitor. You have checked all of our surroundings. Check them again."

'They have tried to kill my son'

A very tiny but not blinding flash of light glimpsed on the radio screen.

"Sectors six to eighty, progress reports" Thufir replied, reading the report.

"Accept"

Thufir nodded; He took the small microphone with his right hand gently and spoke through it.

"Sector six to eighty, copy the sixth grade, the quadrant over the ninth grade plus eighty, four circles, link the eighties and call the fourth grade, copy." There was another flash of light until it went out. "Eight, Thufir Hawat, Mentat, Master of Assassins" He placed the microphone where he was, and turned his gaze to Duke Leto and everyone in the room. "The palace is safe now. Arrakeen is under martial law. We have quartered troops from subsoil six to ten. The other troops are at Arrakeen and at the airfield. The army is training but the shield protects us. With it, we are impenetrable. Dr. Liet Kynes and Ren Amamiya, the two Judges of Change, observed the withdrawal of the Harkonnen and our takeover. Dr. Kynes wants me to accompany him to inspect the extraction of the spice, just as Amamiya will also be second observer. Ah! And he comes here in search of his pet. He asks for permission to enter"

The murmurs rose among all the congregates in the room; If a Judge of the Change accepts the need to speak with those involved in a War of Assassins to assess the situation, then the order would have to be followed immediately as they are the representatives of Emperor Padishah and the Landsraad Council.

"Make it happen," Leto said, to which Thufir nodded and sent the message over the radio.

A minute later, footsteps were heard from the corridor, and an older teenager appeared on the scene with a straight height and firm shoulders. He wore a dark gray uniform with gold buttons and armor-style men. His face was youthful, with wavy black hair, and eyes that matched his uniform.

Paul was speechless, petrified, stunned ... unable to believe he was at his head was the real teenager he had seen in his dreams.

"Greetings" the guest was formally introduced. "I am Ren Amamiya, the second Judge of the Change of Emperor Padishah"

See you in the next chapter.