Heretics of Dune

Duncan and Teg continue to prevent Lucilla from completing her orders to imprint. Duncan resists her use of Voice, and Lucilla realizes that her last resort is the truth. She tells Duncan she has no idea why she must imprint, but she believes it has something to do with Sheeana and the worms. Teg theorizes that the Bene Gesserit needs Duncan to control the worms and revive the old religion. He surmises that Duncan’s ancient genes are valuable and Lucilla’s task is to make Duncan desirable to women. Lucilla marvels at Teg’s impressive powers of reasoning and intuition that his mother must have taught him. Teg notifies them that he has communicated with Burzmali and has set up a rendezvous. Taraza tells Teg that he is to blame if she fails in her mission.

Sheeana tells Odrade that she is not steering the worm and that it travels independently. Waff spends much of the ride alternating between silence and appeals to God. Odrade considers Waff to be living proof that fanaticism can survive like a dormant but deadly microbe for ages. The worm takes them to Sietch Tabr, the ancient dwelling where Paul and Jessica Atreides first found sanctuary with the Fremen Stilgar. Odrade explores the deeper chambers alone and discovers Leto’s hidden spice hoard. 

Leto has etched a message on the walls in the chamber of mélange. The words are addressed to the Reverend Mother he predicted would find his hoard. He warns that the Sisterhood will not survive and that memories are not enough without a “noble purpose.” He chastises the Bene Gesserit for not building the Golden Path and condemning him to make the ultimate sacrifice alone. He asks who their allies are and whether they will be relegated to history as a “secret society.” The Tyrant had predicted that they would call him Shaitan, and Odrade believes that the worms of Rakis hold a pearl of Leto’s consciousness. Taraza’s full plan unfolds before her, and Odrade realizes that to complete their “noble purpose,” the Sisterhood may have to be destroyed. Odrade comments that she now speaks the worm’s language.

Teg, Duncan, and Lucilla leave their shelter armed with weapons and trek through the snowy landscape. Duncan thinks he needs trusted companions like Gurney Halleck, the old Warmaster for House Atreides. He distrusts Lucilla and has always been suspicious of the Bene Gesserit, even Lady Jessica. Teg has put all his trust in Burzmali and hopes their new allies will not betray them. Oncoming Face Dancers suddenly surround them, and Teg orders Duncan and Lucilla to scramble uphill where they hear Burzmali’s call. Lucilla is startled by how much Teg’s command sounds like the use of Voice, and Duncan sees the shadow of his Old Duke in Teg’s order and instinctively obeys. Teg sweeps his lasgun fire around him and climbs upwards to catch up with Duncan and Lucilla. A stunner strikes him in the face and chest, and he passes out.

Leto’s spice hoard is worth half a year’s harvest, and Odrade is given the largest embassy in Keen as her quarters. Albertus serves as her messenger, and his subservience annoys her. She thinks about how the Missionaria Protectiva, the Bene Gesserit’s millennia-long program of religious engineering, easily creates followers and sycophants. Leto’s message has planted doubts in Odrade’s mind, and she questions whether there is any nobility in what the Bene Gesserit does. She imagines Taraza’s voice defending their “noble purpose” as the basic act of survival. 

Waff fears that an alliance with the Bene Gesserit will reduce the Tleilaxu to servitude. To assuage his doubts, Odrade speaks in their secret language and breaks from Taraza’s original plans for the alliance. She confides that the Bene Gesserit plan to raise worms on other planets and mate Sheeana with Duncan so their descendants can spread the Prophet’s religion. She argues that the Honored Matres outnumber them and plan to destroy both Bene Gesserit and the Tleilaxu. The only way to defeat their common enemy is to convert them, and she is prepared to mobilize the Sisterhood as a missionary force for the Tleilaxu’s religion. She assures Waff that she will provide the Tleilaxu with breeding mothers, including herself, in exchange for knowledge of what they have achieved with the gholas. Waff is convinced and agrees to merge the Bene Gesserit’s wisdom with the Tleilaxu’s technology.

Burzmali has set up his command post in the hollow core of a pilingitam tree, a native plant of resilient wood. Duncan and Lucilla are led down its tunnels and are undetectable by lifeform trackers that can only pick up the living tree. They later flee in an armored vehicle to another hiding spot. Birzmali tells them that Teg was likely captured. Duncan and Lucilla are escorted to a secret chamber in the rock shielded from scanners by protective algae. They must travel in two separate groups to a safe house in the city of Ysai. The plan is to disguise Lucilla as an Honored Matre “playfem” with Burzmali as her sexual client, and Duncan as a Tleilaxu Master with his entourage.

On Chapter House Planet, Taraza discusses Odrade’s new terms for the alliance with the Bene Gesserit council. Reverend Mother Bellonda argues that Odrade has committed treason and that both Odrade and the ghola must be eliminated. Taraza ponders how an alliance with the Tleilaxu might secure their crucial supply of melange. The Bene Gesserit requires the substance for the spice agony, the ritual of creating Reverend Mothers with access to Other Memories. The only substitute for the natural spice harvested on Rakis is the Tleilaxu’s spice production in axolotl tanks. She believes grasping the secrets of the tanks will secure the Sisterhood’s survival.

Odrade reports that the fake Tuek is indistinguishable from the real one, and the Tleilaxu’s new Face Dancers can mind print. Their perfect copy may become the mimicked person in a new type of immortality. Taraza thinks about Odrade’s weakness for affections and becomes melancholy about her loneliness and lack of autonomy. She redirects her rage to strengthen her commitment to the Bene Gesserit. Taraza heads to Rakis and wonders if she may have to kill Odrade.

Teg is captured and taken to a shack where three interrogators torture him. They use a T-probe, a new device from the Scattering, which releases agonizing pulses through contacts attached to Teg’s skull. The captors try to extract information about Duncan’s whereabouts, but Teg has infused his body with enough shere, a chemical substance an individual takes to prevent others from accessing their memories before or after death, to resist them for a year. Teg suffers excruciating pain and feels his mind separating from his body as the machine takes control of his physical movements. The machine fully commands his nerves and muscles, and Teg wonders if his body will betray any information.

Using his Mentat focus, he discovers how the device works. The T-probe copies his senses, identifying and tagging all of Teg’s physical responses into a machine simulation of himself. The procedure reminds Teg of how gholas are manufactured. The agony from the probe unleashes a new ability in Teg. He regains control over his body and moves incredibly fast while everything else around him moves in slow motion. He kills the trio, erases the machine’s memory, and escapes. He returns to a normal pace and heads to Ysai.

Taraza meets with Odrade in Rakis, and Odrade explains that she had no alternatives to the alliance. Odrade revels in her newfound independence. She reports that the axolotl “tanks” may be surrogate mothers and reminds Taraza that no one has seen a female Tleilaxu. She also warns Taraza that the sexual expertise of the Honored Matres is superior to their Imprinters. Odrade hypothesizes that the Honored Matres want Duncan because the Tleilaxu have endowed him with the male equivalence of their sexual prowess. Taraza considers having Sheeana kill the ghola since Teg has grown fond of Duncan. Odrade empathizes with the trauma the Duncan gholas must experience each time they awaken in renewed flesh. She acknowledges the mental stamina they must have to survive. Taraza comments that Odrade’s Atreides genes make her courageous, just like her father Teg. Odrade detects that Taraza tacitly approves of her rebelliousness.