***
 
I was about ten years of age when the name ‘Muad’Dib’ first fell upon my ears.  He had just killed Jamis, who had invoked the amtal rule.  Although I had no real interaction with him, I had once played with his sons, Kaleff and Orlop.  They were pleasant and friendly enough, so of course I felt a pang of grief when I learned of Jamis’ fate.
 
It was strange enough that it was an off-worlder to defeat Jamis in the tahaddi-challenge, but what struck me was that this ‘Muad’Dib’ had given water to the dead.  Like the rest, I found myself deeply stirred.  Even to this day, I can’t even imagine what it was like for those who actually witnessed this at Cave of the Ridges.
 
I was a friend of Jamis.  However, if there was ever a man to lead us against the vile Harkonnen, it would be Muad’Dib, champion of Jessica of the Weirding.
 
Selim, from my sietch of Cave of Birds, had gone to Sietch Tabr to learn the weirding ways from Muad’Dib to become one of his fedaykin.  Though I watched his movements and listened to his words, Selim would not let me participate.  I was still a little mouse to him, despite having already ridden a worm.  Even though I respected him as friend and teacher, his admonishment of teaching the weirding ways forced me to learn in secret.
 
No small wonder my awe of Muad’Dib only continued to grow.  Although I was too young to fight with them against the corrupt, water-fat Harkonnen and their so-called Emperor, I saw fit to enlist in Muad’Dib’s jihad when I was a little older.
 
And why wouldn’t I have joined his jihad?  The supposed Great Houses profaned the name of our Mahdi when they declared rebellion.  Our cause was just.  Our religion is just … but then I heard the statistics on those killed and I shuddered.
 
Were I not Fremen I would gladly give water to those poor souls, those that had no chance against the Fremen and Muad’Dib’s Fedaykin.
 
We say of Muad’Dib that he has gone on a journey into that land where we walk without footprints … the only time I truly felt the breadth of His words was the day I entered the Qizarate.  I can still remember Muad’Dib saying: ‘The real universe is always a step beyond logic.  There is peril in finding ultimate perfection.  Such perfection is bound by its own fixity.  In an ultimate perfection, all things move toward death.’
 
I think it was the first time I felt that I had became something more. My eyes and ears opened up and I felt a connection to my ruh-spirit.  I became one of the select few tasked with protecting His Words and holy name.  Through His Words I felt the unknowable alam al-mythal made real and tangible.
 
Looking back, I realize that he was just going through the motions and had probably said this to all the new initiates, and had I known this then I would have been angry.  Now I recognize that that moment was but a pebble cast into the lake of His Knowing and Understanding.  How does one such as me compare to the troubles of a living god?
 
Funny, I never would have been able to imagine a thing such as a lake had I not joined in jihad.
 
It was a shame when the stone burner blinded him, forcing our Mahdi to walk into the desert alone.  I had always thought Korba to be a loyal, trustworthy Fremen, but, seeing now with the open eyes Muad’Dib always wanted from us, his guilt was true.
 
Korba the Panegyrist had became a sort of father figure to me.  As a fedaykin, he knew the Lisan al-Gaib in a way denied to most.  Though I was no fedaykin, we both had fought for the honor of our Mahdi and both of us found a much needed tranquility in the qizarate that jihad had taken from us.  Korba was one of the few I felt truly knew the scars created by jihad.
 
If only I had been able to see the signs of Korba’s betrayal.  I should have seen it!  Perhaps I could have stayed him from that course.  Every night I’m plagued by this thought; I don’t think I’ll ever forgive myself that.
 
Muad’Dib was a great man, Reagent, and I saw the signs of greatness in both young Leto and Ghanima.  Though we are all in mourning for the lost lad, I cannot believe that Leto is truly gone from us.  An even greater fire burns in him than did his father, and as we all know Muad’Dib was never one to be taken lightly.
 
The desert is a part of him, now and forever.
 
So, how can I denounce him?  He was our Lisan al-Gaib.  The Misr loved him.  They love him still.
 
[Despite the claims of the inquisitor, there were no hints of Voice on the accused tongue.]
 
Stilgar recently related to me words from young Leto: ‘Have you noticed how beautiful the young women are this year?’ Most would say that Leto was finally feeling the pangs of preadolescence, but I see it differently for I know that he was like you, Reagent.  Though it may not seem like it, when I was younger I had played the challenge game and, like Stilgar, I can see a hidden wisdom behind these seemingly casual words.
 
It is something I think Muad’Dib would have said had he lived, I believe.
 
The world of the Fremen is changing; I can see that our ways are slowly dying out.  And, no, Reagent, despite what you claim of me, I am not like Muad’Dib though perhaps I’m just able to sense the mortality in all things, Reagent.
 
[Hands quickly moved to crysknives, though a glare from the Reagent kept the blades sheathed.]
 
As long as Ghanima lives, Muad’Dib’s wisdom and knowledge continue to exist in this world.  That is the world I desire to live in.  A great coriolis storm is coming, and I fear what may befall Naib Stilgar.  He is a good Fremen and is undeserving of what you plan.
 
As I said before, I cannot denounce him, coan-teen, any more than I could denounce my being Fremen.
 
I was a friend of Muad’Dib.  May your blade chip and shatter.
 
—confession to St. Alia of the Knife by an unknown qizara accused of being prescient

First Place:

Entry #3 by Ampoliros (on Jacurutu)

Second Place:

Entry #1 by Nekhrun (on Jacurutu)

Third Place:

Entry #7 by Dante (on Jacurutu)

CONGRATULATIONS TO THE WINNERS, AND A HEARTY THANK YOU TO EVERYONE WHO PARTICIPATED!

And Happy Birthday, KJA!

Oh, right, almost forgot:

Entry #5 by Lolronica

Reverend Mother (Ret.) Solaraseraph looked across the fine synthetic Elacca wood table at her diminutive opponent.  He’s taken this appearance to fool me, but he is the fool!  I can see right through him!  She used her trained Bene Gesseritt powers of observation to peer into the little man and through him.  Scanning the doors behind him she detected traces of the two Face Dancer Jongleur Assault Guards which stood just outside the door way.  The Deadliest in the Universe!  Completely undetectable to my skills!  Even this one will be carrying hidden weapons…There! Flick darts in his sleeves, very devious.  I must not Fear…  She scanned the little elf in front of her, peering through his green jerkin, noticing his heart rhythm maintain a steady pace.  He is good at controlling his fear, but I can see right through him! Literally!  I wonder how much I could barter from him for that secret!  She returned her gaze outward to his whole being.  The Tleilaxu was regarding her patiently, allowing her to process her observation.

“Your name, in Old Earth speak it means “Sun Angel”.  From your glorious blonde hair I see you choose to accentuate this fact.  Perhaps after our dealings here we should negotiate for that genetic quality.”  The Ronin Tleilaxu Master X’vxxizfg’p3po eyed the beauty.  True enough he could assume her buxom form now just through the casual yet traditional handshake they had made before he held out her chair.  It was an ancient tradition from when women were seen to be weaker than men, yet even this undoubtedly powerful Reverend Mother had betrayed a slight blush that only his metal Tleilaxu eyes could detect.  What they do with the power of the mind we do with the Language of God: Science!

“And what are we here to deal for?” Solaraseraph countered.  “What would the Tleilaxu want with a Rogue Reverend Mother?”  X’vxxizfg’p3po eyed her up and down with a look that said “You are a sex object, you have always been a sex object, you will always be a sex object”.  “Many things.  Things within Things.  Maybe even Things within Things within Things, I’m a shapeshifter afterall.   And a master of absorption due to my Face Dancer skills.”  She saw where his gaze was.

“And I was one of the sisterhood’s finest Mind-Razors, trained to subtly adjust the memories of my opponents, and a level 2 Guild Adept.”  Level 2, if she’d continued with her training even further, the mutations from the spice would have completely ruined her figure, they both thought.

“As in all things, we are here to discuss Muad’dib.  His reign cannot continue.  As long as he controls Arrakis he controls the spice, and he who controls the spice…”

“CONTROLS THE UNIVERSE!!” Solaraseraph finished for him.  “Kull Wahad!” She saw where the Tleilaxu was going.  They must interfere with Paul’s prescience first before they could wrestle control of Arrakis!

“We must find a way to disrupt his prescience, so that we may accelerate our production of Amal.  The technology was only assumed to be lost.  So far we’ve disguised its presence by mixing it with a powerful narcotic that all Tleilaxu are addicted to but naturally immune to: Kra’kk.

“I have a plan, an ancient tool the Bene Gesseritt used before we had full power over the spice.  I had a hunch that this was your angle so I took the liberty of bringing them along.  She opened her satchel, and reached for her lasgun to eradicate this foul but strangely alluring creature.  She felt him tense, readying his flick darts.  No, not the flickdarts…My Gods! Even his Flickdart launchers had hidden miniaturized flickdart launchers armed with laspulse detonators!  A new bomb design that harnessed a lasgun and a shield emitter to cause an atomic explosion!  Was this Tleilaxu abomination prepared to die just to kill her?  No!  Tleilaxu are practically immortal, if even one molecule of his genetic memory survives his ghola-clones will retain even the memory of this meeting, and my treachery!

Her hand moved away from the lasgun and instead pulled from the bag a small hexagonal box and a long rectangular box, which she set on the table between them.  She opened the long box first, revealing what appeared to be a board game with only one piece, a plazsteel arrow with a viewing eye.

“This is the Dune Ouija, a trained Bene Gesserit can use it to channel with the Oracle.  It’s accuracy is amazingly precise, yet only seems to be most effective in the presence of our youngest female adepts, late at night.  Introduce this to a wide audience and the bandwidth to the Oracle will be so packed that she will not be able to contact Muad’dib and give him the future, and even when she can his reception will be incredibly slow.”

X’vxxizfg’p3po leaned forward, steepling his fingers and with a hungry look in his eyes.  “And the other box?  I assume it works in much the same way.”

“Of course” she said taking the box into her hand and opening its smooth ultra-wood cover.  She took out a stack of hexagonal metallic cards.  “This one would better suit our purpose as it is more portable and more popular.”  She looked directly into the Tleilaxu master’s eyes as they both began to grin maniacally.

“This is the Dune Tarot.”

“Ultimate Kwisatz?! You’ve lost something in the sack after the last 26 years being on the Ithaca,” said Murbella as she rolled out of bed next to Duncan Idaho on Synchrony. “What the hell were you doing while we were in the middle of…What was that glazed look in your eye? Who were you yelling at?”

Duncan put his pants on, one leg at a time, just like every other ultimate super-being. “Oh, since I am the Evermind, and in charge of each and every machine in the cosmos, I was telling the machine food processing units on Chapterhouse to ‘step it up a bit’.” Duncan turned around, and began yelling towards the ceiling at no one in particular. “Yeah, you, Daltrox 3000. I don’t care if you served on Synchrony. I’ve assigned you to Chapterhouse!”

Murbella continued, “So, while you were whispering my name?”

Idaho replied, “Oh, that wasn’t your name I was whispering. I was guiding the droids of Murbessa XII to cycle down for the night.”

She stammered, “But an hour ago while we were getting excited, you seemed so engaged in it all. So interested in me and my needs. The little questions about how your kiss felt on my lips. The inquisitive nature about the rise in my pheromones.”

Duncan said, “Oh, that was Erasmus. Yeah, he’s in here with me. When I’m feeling a little ‘down and out’, or distracted, I let him take over. He said that our foreplay would be a great way for him to further conduct his ‘observational’ experiments on female humans.”

Murbella commented, “I did seem to smell a little flowmetal.”

Duncan said, “Yeah, we are practically one and the same. I kind of went into ‘down mode’ and let him take on over!”

Janess Idaho’s mother said, “Down mode?”

Duncan explained, lacing up his boots, “Yeah, didn’t you ‘catch’ me switching to an English accent? You see, I move him and I around in my mind. I put him here with you, by letting the Big-E-Inside-of-Me take over. Then inside my ‘super-mind’, I can zone out and watch the robot death match on Mimbane through my tachyon Net.”

“Oh, so that explains your stopping to eat nachos a few minutes ago,” Murbella said.

Duncan explained, “The four super-truck machines are still going at it. Go Ford F-150! (product placement for the upcoming movie!) Erasmus said that you were a great partner, and the he gathered a lot of ‘info’. Damn Fiat! Use those giant tires! Oh, by the way, The Big E wants me to ask you if you’re a natural redhead?”

“What?”

“I told him I didn’t know, and that it’s been 26 years. He said your hair follicles seemed different from all the other women.”

Murbella stopped him, “All the other women?”

“Oh yeah, Sheeana was here the other night. The Big-E was fascinated, and he really ‘gathered a lot of data’ on her,” Duncan replied.

Murbella said, “And?”

Duncan said matter-of-factly, “…and as I already ‘had’ Sheeana on the Ithaca a couple of years back, I didn’t want a repeat. So I took a mind-snoozer, put my body on ‘automatic’, and let my machine friend take over.” Duncan tapped at his temple. “But sometimes, the Big E can be too much even for me. The guy’s an ‘information’ maniac. I told him I’m the Ultimate Kwisatz, not the Ultimate Sex Machine. I’m not as young as I used to be. And I had to draw the line with him wanting me to dress up as his favorite role play that he used to do with Omnius, Ol’-Lady-Marty, earlier this week. You big kidder, Big E, to think that I thought you were an enhanced Face Dancer 26 years ago when I first saw you with Daniel.”

Suddenly, Duncan turned towards the wall, yelling at the air. “I told you that I wanted the pizza ovens on the left side of the restaurant set to 200 degrees Celsius.”

“There’s your yelling out again, and it’s been getting worse over the past day”, she said.

Duncan continued, “Yeah, I know. But a robot machine unit is malfunctioning on Gammu at CHOAM’s Pizza Hut (product placement again!). Thinking he can set the pizza ovens to 375 F. I had to tell him the ‘way it is’. No one puts one over on the super-being of the Cosmos-Universe-Imperium-Known Space. I have so much work for one man-robot-messiah-supervisor to do in a day. What were we saying?”

“Duncan, I was wondering, about those nu-Fish Speakers that you are training for your personal Army?”, she said, as it dawned on her the answer before he spoke.

“The Big E’s idea.”

Murbella asked, “And the fact that they all look like super models?”

Duncan replied with a big smile, “The Big E again. Although I do agree with him.”

“But didn’t Erasmus at least somewhat die on the Super-Day of Kralizec, at the Ultra-Ultimate Championship Fight here in the Cathedral, by merging with you? It took all of three hours. Round 1: Paul vs himself. Round 2: Vapor Normacle vs Omnius. Round 3: Yueh vs Vladimir. Round 5: Leto II vs Machines. Round 4: Erasmus vs Khrone? You remember, one minute humanity was going to be wiped out, the next day it was all better.” she asked.

Duncan said, “Oh yes, last month. Well, Erasmus simply won’t go. Now that he can live inside of a human, it’s a whole new experience, and he simply won’t die…Shut up you, you lazy machines of Lampadas, get back to work. You thought the dictators of Old Earth were bad!…Murbella, he really just wants me to line up the ladies, have me start to dress up as a pimp, and conduct his ‘experiments’. But The Big-E does have a request to ask of you.”

“What?”, said the former Honored Matre-Bene Gesserit-Valkyrie Leader-Spice Facilitator-Leader of the New Sisterhood.

“He wants you to put on a few pounds, and bleach your hair blonde, like Serena Butler. Then during our next time he wants you to cry out, ‘Xavier, Xavier’, as we make it in a pasture near some horses. Big E, you are obsessed with that Butler woman!” But then Duncan twisted again, this time screaming at the wall, only inches from it. “Sick of emptying Guild ships of spent fuel? You were created a waste processing machine, you will die one.”

Murbella circled around Duncan, “So this is what I have to look forward to the rest of my life. Erasmus’s sexual fantasies, and your spastic shouting at Machines all over the universe?”

“’fraid so, sugar,” Duncan said, and gasped.

“One Act can Change the Universe, Four Sentences Can Be a Chapter”
—Unknown Science Fiction Author, early 21st Century, Old Earth.

Murbella drove the knife deep into Duncan’s back, twisting and cutting, as his blood ran over the floor.

“I have a bad feeling about this. What the hell was that?”, Duncan said, as he tried futilely to pull the dagger out of his back.

“The Emperor’s Blade. Never needs sharpening, even after 5000 years of use. You remember: Shaddam, Leto I, Feyd, Paul, Marie Fenring, Hasimir, the Shrine on Dan, Paolo, Paul again, and now – you,” Murbella said as she walked out of the room.

“Who needs a nebula when you have a star?”
—Ancient Proverb

God Emperor Leto Atreides II sat in his sand cabin correcting the urgent communiques he had drafted for House Conway. The work was draining but vital. He sat hunched forward; a heavy segmented mass surrounded his upper body, the first stages of his terrible metamorphosis into a great sand worm. Within his mind, his memories babbled. He had called upon his father, Paul Muad’dib Atreides – who had led the Fremen tribes to freedom and established a new empire just thirty years before, for advice on phrasing and workflow – with his help the task was already almost complete. Sometimes two heads were better than one.

Just as they were putting the finishing touches to the last edit Leto heard a ripple of disturbance pass through the multitude of his ancestral memories. He closed his eyes and entered what he and his father had always called The Innerworld.

Leto often enjoyed taking safaris into his Innerworld and the familiar heat of the African savannah greeted him once again as he blinked in the bright sunshine of his mind. P’Se-Ta, a distant ancestor from the Old Earth days was waiting there to greet him.

“Thank you for coming so quickly, Master Leto,” the tribesman called. He was missing several teeth and had a curved white bone stuck through his nose. Leto strode through the yellow grasses towards him.

“What is it old friend?” Leto asked, as he approached he saw tears running down the bone-nosed tribesman’s cheeks, “What is wrong?”

P’Se-Ta put his arms around Leto and sobbed, “My daughter is gone!”

A voice came from the shadows behind them, calm and collected, but commanding, Leto and P’Se-Ta turned to see the source of the voice. “Then we need to go find her,” said Leto’s father, Paul Muad’dib Atreides.

“In four-hundred-yards. Turn left.”
—Primitive Richessian Navigation Machine

“Gone?” said Leto, he and Paul were running now, through the landmarks of The Innerworld. “How can she go anywhere? This is all in my head, she is an ancestral memory – a memory-self passed down to me through you and all the ancestors before you.”

Paul looked at his son, “Son, your memories are genetic, you can’t forget them, they’re encoded into your DNA”

“Then where is P’Se-Ta the Old Earth African tribesman’s daughter?”

Paul looked grim, “Thing is, she ain’t the first to disappear. I’ve been trying to work it out for a while now.”

Leto stopped running in the middle of a forgotten city, “Disappear? There have been others? Why didn’t you tell me?”

“I had to be sure kid. It’s the ordinary people, hard working schlubs with boring lives, the ones that ain’t worth remembering.” Paul answered.

“Everyone’s worth remembering!” Leto shouted, “Nobody deserves to be forgotten. Those ‘hard working schlubs’, as you put it are human beings, their lives have value. Now are we going to find out what happened to P’Se-Ta’s daughter or not.”

Paul pulled up his collar and began to walk, “We should get moving.” He growled.

“It is sometimes dark inside dark cupboards”
—Loqu’d Innes; House Corrino Minister of Cupboards.

Paul Atreides and his son Leto raced though Leto’s Innerworld in search of clues to locate P’Se-Ta the African Tribesman’s daughter. They stopped outside the memory of a small run down cottage on Caladan’s Northern continent. Thick green and purple trees surrounded them.

“Why are we here?” Leto asked.

“A lead.” Paul replied. “Man called Yames Davidius – you might remember him.”

Leto shook with fear as he probed the dark dark places that this man represented. Davidius was what the ancient genealogists would call a ‘Gateway Ancestor’ beyond him was a whole new, previously unknown lineage.

Paul continued, “Some of the other memories said that he might have been the last person to see P’Se-Ta’s daughter. We should talk to him.”

“He’s not here,” Leto said, peering through the window. A runic wind-chime clinked in the breeze. Leto looked closer – he recognised those runes. A feeling of intense foreboding came over him.

“Look! Tracks!” Paul exclaimed. There were clear footprints leading into the dark forest, “Lets follow them!”

The two Atreides Emperors started walking, deeper into the forest of the Innerworld, and deeper into Leto’s ancestral memories, in search of P’Se-Ta the African tribesman’s daughter.

“It is often quite easy to find something unexpected.”
—Loqu’d Innes; Looking for Things in Strange Cupboards; Kaitain Press, 9709AG.

Leto and his father were walking through the seemingly endless forest of the Innerworld, when suddenly, “Stop!” Paul commanded with a harsh whisper, “Listen!”

A deep basso baritone laugh filled the forest of Leto’s Innerworld. Birds fluttered away. The sound sent a chill down Leto’s spine.

“You are trapped!” the Basso voice called out. Leto and Paul could not see it’s source, but they both had recognised its unmistakable flabby cadence immediately. “It is I, none other than Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, who have trapped you.”

Leto stared at his father with eyes wide, “It’s the Baron Vladimir Harkonnen! He must have abducted P’Se-Ta the African tribesman’s daughter! Let’s get him!”

They ran out into a clearing and faced the great gross bulk of Baron Vladimir Harkonnen. “Now this is nice, a great big family re-union,” He rumbled. “You of course know now that I am your great-grandfather, dear Leto. You remember that I killed your grandfather, and possessed your aunt Alia. And now I will possess you.”

“You can’t!” Leto grinned defiantly, “I have made peace with my multitude.”

“Ah but what if I am your multitude?” It was the same rumbling basso voice, but this time it was behind them! ”Me, me, me, me, me,” It rumbled, all around them.

“Son,” Paul whispered as rumbling basso laughter multiplied to a great rumbling basso crescendo, “Run!”

As Leto turned to run, time slowed down. A wall of great big bloated Baron Harkonnens flew towards him and his father. A great dribbling mass incoming at a speed that even he could not manage in the real world, but this was the Innerworld, the place of memories. Laws of physics did not apply here.

Leto ran, the last thing he saw was his father being covered by the great wobbling bulk of a thousand Baron Harkonnens.

“Love is big”
—Ancient Proverb

Leto ran to the memories of his grandmother, Lady Jessica. “Thank god you made it Leto.” She sobbed as she embraced him.

He felt a hand on his shoulder, it was his grandfather Duke Leto Atreides, “Chin up lad, Paul is still alive, though quite what you two were doing walking down that line of memories, I don’t rightly know. Davidius’ line leads back to all sorts of dark places.”

“It was a trap, I should have seen it!” Leto exclaimed, “That branch of the family tree will be well defended. I simply won’t be able to access those memories! My father is as good as lost now.”

“There’s someone I want you to see,” Jessica said, wiping her face. “Come with me.”

“A man is as great as those he counts among his friends and followers.”
—T’weeter Mc’Shi’tti; Master Communicator.

“Lord Leto?” The woman blurted, surprised, as she opened the door.

She was small and a bit ugly; Leto barged past her. “I need your help Norma! Baron Harkonnen is taking over other memories in my Innerworld, when he takes over enough of them he will gain control of me – and now he has my father, as well as P’Se-Ta the African tribesman’s daughter.”

She opened her mouth but no sound came out. Gradually she drew herself together, “But I am just an simple spaceship designer and consort to Aurelius Venport with who I had five children, maybe he would be of more use to you?”

Leto drew closer to her, “You were more than that, you’re Norma Cenva.”

She pulled away, “You know I don’t remember any of that. I am just a memory self, residing in your Innerworld. I only remember up until the point of birth of my last child, through whom the memories of my life passed to you.”

“Well then remember! Remember!” Leto said.

“I can’t! It’s impossible!” She cried.

“You are her! You are… The Oracle!” Leto said.

“No!” she cried.

“Yes!” Leto said.

“No!… Whoever she was. I am not her. She was something else, a star burning so bright that all the universe could see her. I wish you luck and good fortune… but I cannot help you.” She brushed a hair from her face, “I’m sorry.”

She turned her back. Leto sighed, “No, I’m sorry. I should not have pushed you. Sometimes we have to fight our own battles. Alone.”

“In our darkest hour we have the least light.”
—Loqu’d Innes; Imperial Treatise on Cupboards.

The Barons had beaten Paul badly. His head was spinning and he was only semi-conscious of being dragged into a building he only vaguely recognised. Around the dark door he saw darkly carved runes. This memory place was thousands of years old.

One of the fat men glided over, “You resist? Why do you resist?”

Another one floated round, “Why prolapse the inevitable?” (K! Prolong? –B)

A third one rumbled, “There is no escape – this is an annex of memory accessible only through a single point. No one can save you now!”

The building shook, dust showered down on the assembled Barons and Paul, “Father!” A distant voice came.

“Quick! Man the defences!” A Baron cried, and they all buzzed around like fat hornets.

“Father!” It was Leto, some way distant “Can you hear me, we need to fight! Now!”

“Fight,” Paul growled groggily, he had no weapons and he was tied up with Ecazi Krimskell rope. He cleared his mind. This was the Innerworld, he existed only as a memory self within his son’s mind. Within his own memories were his own multitude, he dipped into them. Unarmed combat, he chased through his lineages, thinking, grasping at possibilities. He met a man, saw the man’s life, and in a split second, lived a lifetime on Old Earth in ancient China. As a child he scrubbed latrines and as an old man he enthralled a new generation with ancient tales. He was that man and he remembered.

He stood up. The Baron guarding him shouted something, but Paul didn’t hear.

“I remember Kung Fu.” Paul said.

The Baron was speechless for the split second before Paul tore apart his bindings and punched the fat lump with such force that it spun back and smashed through a wall.

Paul made good his escape and went to join the figure outside.

“Father,” Leto nodded.

“Son,” Paul replied.

“There’s more of them coming,” Leto said

“Harkonnens?” Paul asked.

“Thousands of ‘em,” Leto replied.

“Let’s make some bread!”
—Ci’abata the Baker before the Battle of Tirami’su

A wobbling line of grotesque shapes formed up along the top of the building that had contained Paul. Now from outside he recognised it – an ancient Muad’dru opera house that had stood on Caladan for thousands of years before Caladan was Caladan. He scanned the runes engraved into the upper portico – “Built in honour of those who fell in the conquest of Delta Pavonis” he translated.

“This is why the came after Yames Davidius,” Leto said, “The last of the Muad’dru.”

Opposite the building another line of flabby tyrants had formed.

“Son, you must leave, escape while you can. Don’t be foolish!” Paul said.

“I’m not running, father.” Leto replied, “And anyway, I think it’s too late for that.”

Another phalanx was forming up behind them. Suddenly all around a great horn sounded. The ground began to shake. A thousand suspensor globes hummed and the the earth creaked as the mass of the Barons lifted slowly into the air.

“You go left, I go right.” Leto whispered.

“Yes,” Paul replied, “And son?”  Leto looked at him, “Good luck.”

The Barons charged, first a few, Paul dodged, and kicked. Leto punched one after another, the giant fleshy curving away first in one direction than another. The second wave was bigger, the sheer mass overwhelming Paul, a pile, more than fifty metres tall, towered on top of him. He heaved up, the pile toppled. Leto continued to fight, using his super speed to dodge in and out.

Paul used his newly remembered Kung Fu skills to devastating effect, Baron after wobbling Baron fell to his whirling limbs, “Hoooarrrgh!” He shouted defiantly, but his jubilation was cut short as a wall of Barons fell upon him.

Leto too quickly found himself in trouble, there were too many of them. He was pinned. Two held his arms, and two more held his legs, Two more strode up to him.

“I think I should consume him,” the first said.

“I agree, It’s not every day I get to eat an Emperor,” the second agreed.

The first chuckled a low rumbling basso chuckle, “And today I have both a starter and a main course.”

They were close now, very close. The first licked his lips, as did the second. “Say goodbye to this, young Leto. When you return to the real world, you won’t be you. You will be me. Think of the fun I will have. First, I think I will have to take care of that delicious sister of yours.”

Leto struggled, “Damn you! Damn you to hell!” The four Barons holding him down maintained their grip. The other loomed, Paul, also trapped yelled something indistinct.

“This! This is the end of the House of Atreides. I may have failed once, but not again!” The Barons laughed, not a chuckle, but a hearty booming laugh. The one nearest Leto stopped laughing and moved in for the final bite. “No man can stop me now, young Atreides!”

“No man!” A voice came, a woman’s voice.

A force sword poked out through the Baron’s chest. He looked down at the glowing blade, “Nooooooooo!” he screamed.

Suddenly the army of Barons began to glow brilliantly. “Noooooooooo!” they all screamed as they gradually faded, leaving only the dishevelled forms of the memories they had possessed.

Leto stood, standing over a groggy little girl who now lay where once a Baron stood, was Norma Cenva. He features glowed radiantly, her golden hair rustling in the gentle Caladanian breeze. The dark clouds were clearing and a pastel sunrise emerged from behind them

“Sometimes, when you open a cupboard, you forget what you were looking for.”
—Loqu’d Innes; Ammendment to the Imperial Treatise on Cupboards.

Paul joined them, he helped the little girl to her feet, glancing at Norma, but remaining silent.

Paul knelt, “Hey kid. We should get you back to your P’Se-Ta, you know sometimes dad’s get very worried about their children.” She smiled, then he asked, “I never asked your name. What is it?”

“My father is P’Se-Ta. I am Dilly, P’Se-Ta Dilly.” She took Paul’s hand and began to lead her back to the savannah and her father.

Leto looked at Norma, “Thank-you. How can I ever repay you?”

She smiled, “Forget me. The Oracle is me, but I am not the Oracle. I am Norma Cenva. Starship designer, mistress, mother. Remember me as those, and those alone.”

Leto blinked as he opened his eyes and emerged from the Innerworld, back into the humble surroundings of his sand cabin. It was dawn outside, the finished piles of of communiques still stacked neatly on the table beside him. The dream had been real, but it was fading. A single tear fizzed down his cheek. And it was gone.

Dark. It was always dark. In space.
 
Leaving the atmosphere of Caladan behind, newly-Duke Leto Atreides watched cool blue sky fade to black. Already the great heighliner loomed in the void, carelessly rotating. The Duke’s pilot exchanged a few words with the carrier’s control, obtained permission to berth. Leto suppressed a sigh as the last traces of cerulean sky disappeared, blasted away by metal bulk.
 

A hand on his shoulder. He turned to find Dorothy smiling up at him with worried concern. For a moment he thought to embrace his precious seventh wife, remembered protocol and stayed his hand. The role of a duke called for some behaviours. Even his wife was not immune from them.

“Concerned, love?” Dorothy was sympathetic. Of course Leto was concerned. A diplomatic foray into ground untouched for centuries, but for spilt blood, and he walked into it near alone on the word of two men. His cousin, the Emperor, who assured him of his host’s good intentions, and his host himself: the Baron Harkonnen.

Vendetta of generations, abruptly broken by a missive from the Baron offering parley. It was almost too good to be true. Gurney Halleck certainly thought so, had said as much before Leto departed. Gurney’s fears rang in Leto’s mind, but he couldn’t turn back now. He had to try. To say he had tried.

“The Baron wouldn’t be so brazen as to have us assassinated at his own party.” Dorothy assured him “If he’s up to something-”

“He’s up to something.” Leto replied firmly. “But better to find out what it is and evade it than cower on Caladan, which could very well be what he expected me to do.” The aperture of the heighliner passed overhead.

“Incoming transmission, my lord.” The pilot failed to hide his shock. “It’s from Baron Harkonnen.”

Leto stiffened, felt Dorothy’s grip press the tension out of his shoulders.

“Send it through.” He coughed, the order coming out a croak. The pilot nodded mutely.

“Duke Leto! So glad you decided to come.” The Baron’s voice was unmistakable.

“Baron Harkonnen.” Leto replied formally. “I didn’t realise you would accompany us to Giedi Prime.”

“I wasn’t sure you would come.” The Baron’s voice smirked. “I assure you, if you hadn’t accepted I would have been quite inclined to leave the heighliner and persuade you myself!”

“Your dedication is impressive.” Leto replied, quietly imagining Gurney’s reaction if the Baron were to set foot on Caladan.

“Psh, think nothing of it.” The Baron replied jovially. “Listen, I’ve taken the liberty of requesting adjacent berths, I’d like to arrange a short meeting prior to our arrival.”

Completely inside Guild neutrality… what can he be up to?

“My delight is equalled only by my surprise.” Leto replied stiffly.

“I expected nothing less.” The Baron’s voice was a study in amused sincerity. “I hear we will be leaving soon, so I shall see you after the first jump, which I believe is to the home of your lovely wife.”

“Ecaz.” Leto managed.

“Quite right. Good day, dear Duke.”

“Baron.”

The transmission ended as the shuttle slotted into place next to the Harkonnen gryphon. Dorothy shivered, prompting Leto to put an arm around her shoulders. “What are we walking into?” She asked unhappily.

“We can trust the Guild to keep order.” He replied without conviction.

The heighliner’s internal lights powered down. Somewhere in the vast body of the carrier, the navigator flexed his mind, reached out…

The jump was smooth. Leto exited the shuttle above Ecaz, taking only his bodyguard into the heighliner, leaving Dorothy with the pilot.

The passages were crowded with travellers and traders. A Wayku merchant approached, was pushed back by the bodyguard.
 

Leto met the Baron in a small social room off the main thoroughfare. Surprisingly, he was alone.

“Leto! A pleasure.” The Baron rose, shook hands. “Will you join me for a drink?” He indicated a bottle directly beneath the snooper.

“I… would be honoured.” Leto forced the words out. The Baron hummed softly as he poured.

“You didn’t bring your wife.” He commented, handing Leto the glass. “A shame, but I understand. My condolences, by the way, on the tragic loss of your last wife. What was she, the fourth…?”

“Sixth.” Leto corrected. The loss of Gertrude had seen all of Caladan in mourning, barely three weeks after the last period of mourning for Alice. Leto simply thanked providence that nobody had yet figured out that his third marriage had been a spice-fuelled weekend of insanity with a drunken Duncan Idaho. What happened on Grumman stayed on Grumman.

“Of course.” The Baron raised his glass. “To your many, many beautiful wives.” Leto raised his glass, subtly bringing it closer to the snooper, before drinking.

“And… might I congratulate you, Baron, on your successful operation.” Leto said in an attempt to be equally cordial. “Why, nobody would ever guess that you were born a woman.”

“You are too kind.” The Baron smiled. “The Tleilaxu, they can work wonders, you know. And I never liked the name Vladmira.”
 

The next two hours passed in polite, meaningless conversation. As the heighliner prepared to jump once more, Leto noticed a faint undercurrent, a rattling, hissing noise in the hum of the engines. Before he could comment, the heighliner lurched as the Holtzmann engines came online.

“All passengers please prepare for foldspace jump.” The guildsman’s voice was flat, even allowing for the deadening transmission. Leto sat down, watched the Baron sip his spice wine. He seemed about to say something, was cut off by a sudden lurch, sending the snooper flailing.

“What-” Leto was interrupted by a terrible tearing, snapping noise. He looked out the viewport, watched the heighliner seem almost to bend. Someone outside screamed as the engines reached full power.

“Have we jumped?” Leto wondered. The Baron checked a device on the wall.
“Seems so.” He noted. “Unusual though.”

Before Leto could enquire further, a deafening screeching noise sounded through the hull of the carrier. On the other side of the heighliner, seven berths were torn outward as the craft split open. Leto watched incredulously as the tear continued, ripping apart the heighliner and peeling its shell into space.

“Sir!” Leto’s bodyguard rushed into the room, found his master at the viewport.
“Sir, Lady Atreides has left the shuttle in search of you.”

“I must find her.” Leto turned for the door.

“I will find out what’s going on.” The Baron slammed down his glass. They left in separate directions, Leto heading back towards the passenger berths. The way was flooded with distressed travellers and nonplussed merchants. He spotted Dorothy in the crowd, rushed to her side.
 

“But… the Great Convention!” Dorothy wailed. “They can’t!”

“Someone is.” Leto replied grimly, awestruck at the ease with which the great heighliner had been crippled. Hurrying back to the shuttle, he had just sealed the doors when another sight caught his eye. Something tiny and silver against the black of space and the twinkle of stars. It moved quickly, darting towards the nearest stricken shuttle, disappearing behind it. Already there were more. Three sleek silver craft apparently coming from outside the heighliner. Leto recognised nothing about them. Surely they can’t have more than the most rudimentary life support in craft that small…

“People of Heighliner X52A.” This voice was, if anything, even more devoid of humanity than the guildsman’s. Leto’s pilot gestured, indicating that it was being broadcast to the entire population of the heighliner. “Please do not panic. Your craft has been diverted as part of an experiment. If you cooperate, you will not suffer any pain. We ask that you not obstruct us in our activities. Obstruction will lead to termination. That is all.” Leto tried not to show his concern, but in the event he needn’t have bothered. Dorothy was practically fainting with fear. His second wife, he recalled, had been made of sterner stuff. Until the tragic accident that had claimed her life.

A sudden burst of communication, urgent and frantic. “Mayday! Machines! Thinking mach-” the speaker was already cut off by another.

“-one help me! They’re taking the children, the ch-” this voice too was cut off in a burst of static. On the other side of the heighliner, a shuttle exploded.

“Sweet merciful Buddhammed.” Dorothy gasped, a single tear running down one dumpy cheek. Hundreds of the tiny vessels now swarmed through the rent heighliner, seeking out shuttles with mechanical precision.

“Machines that think.” The pilot stared at the unfolding devastation. An imperial shuttle fired upon the silver raiders, was immediately destroyed.

“Shields up.” Leto ordered. The pilot looked stricken.

“Can’t, sir. The controls won’t respond to anything, they’ve locked us out.” Leto frowned.

“Can you open the rear hatch?”

“No, sir.”

“Fine.” Leto turned, strode from the bridge. Retrieving a lasgun, he marched for the aft of the shuttle. Dorothy followed him, catching up just as he reached the sealed hatch.

“What are you doing?” She asked plaintively.

“I need to reach the navigation chamber.” Leto announced firmly. “If the engines can be brought online, the navigator must take us away from here.”

“I’m coming with you.”
 

Leto paused. While he was loathe to leave his wife, the idea of abandoning her to the clutches of the machines was more than he could bare. “Alright.”

He aimed the lasgun at the hatch and fired.

Burning through the plasteel took surprisingly little time, opening the way back into the heighliner’s public space. Leto jumped through, helped Dorothy after him. He set off for the private areas of the heighliner, barging aside anyone in his way. Speakers crackled as he reached a door that would normally be guarded by guildsmen. A woman shouted something in broken Galach before being cut off in lasgun fire. Leto grit his teeth and opened the door.

Familiar with the layout of heighliners, Leto led Dorothy quickly through the body of the ship. Pockets of guildsmen ignored them, rushing past with weapons drawn. They didn’t even question Leto’s lasgun. By the time he reached the control room, however, they had become more organised. One stepped forward to halt Leto outside the navigator’s chamber.

“What is your purpose here?” A bald man asked tersely.

“We need to get out of here,” Leto replied. “Is the navigator able to travel?”

“The navigator is… unmolested.” The guildsman replied. “The engines, however, have been completely disabled.” We have teams in ever auxiliary station, they have all been compromised.”

Leto reached into his pocket, withdrew the emergency heighliner restarter given to him by his old friend Rhombur. Because you never know when you might need one he had said. How right he was.

“A Vernian Device?” The guildsman recoiled. “What is it?”

“It will restart the engines.” Leto replied.

“Will it?” The guildsman’s spirits lifted.

“Will it?” The Baron, who had been arguing with a nearby guildsman, raised a sceptical eyebrow.

“It will.” Leto promised, remembering the fateful day when Rhombur had given him the precious Vernian Device which he had made himself before destroying the blueprints and killing himself.

“Well alright then.” The guildsman stood aside. “I warn you though, what you see in there-”

“Yes yes, ultimate secret of spice gas, blah blah blah.” Leto pushed the man aside.

Entering the control room disturbed a couple of morose pilots who stood before the great control panel. At a signal from the guildsman at the door, they parted to allow Leto access to the controls.

“What is this?” The navigator’s voice buzzed from her large chamber in the middle of the room.

“I’m reactivating the engines.” Leto opened the secret panel in the controls which Rhombur had told him about. Placing the Vernian Device inside caused the entire control panel to light up in a pleasing shade of mauve.

“The engines can be brought online!” One of the pilots exclaimed. His elation was short lived, however, as the air above the panel began to bend.

“What-” Dorothy started, but was cut off as the air opened above them.

“A hole in the universe. Don’t see those every day.” The navigator wobbled with concern. All at once a woman fell through the rip in spacetime.

“A tear in reality that delivers women?” Leto asked as a second woman tumbled through. “I could have used one of those before my fourth wedding.”

“I wonder if there’s a different one.” The Baron mused. He was forced to step back as the hole was filled by the bulk of a large creature, which tumbled through thereafter, followed by a massive jangle of twisted metal struts and supports.

Wobbling at the edges, the wormhole closed.

One of the women was already on her feet and examining Leto critically.

“And who are you?” She asked.

“I am Duke Leto Kavin Brianna Atreides.” Leto replied. “And you are?”

“Mother Superior Murbella.” The woman answered as the other one stood up behind her.

“I am Norma Cenva.” She announced in a clear, crystalline voice. Her eyes flitted across the company. “Oh dear.”

“I AM,” the massive creature rumbled, rolling over to reveal a disproportionately small human face, “Emperor Leto Atreid-” he paused upon seeing the group. “Oh. I knew this was gong to already have happened.” His gaze lingered on Leto. “Hello grandfather.”

“Grandfather?” Dorothy gaped. “But I only just became pregnant!”

“You’re pregnant?!” Leto exclaimed.

“Nevermind that, we have machines to deal with!” The Baron snapped.

“Machines?” The voice was new, similar to that of the navigator. “MACHINES?” What Leto had taken for a heap of scrap metal shuddered violently, producing an arm twice the size of a man. It was followed by a fearsome face, a frowning man wrought in steel. The mask pulled together four huge metal legs, folded like a spider’s. “Machines attack us? Then we shall smash them!” The face’s eyes glowed blue, immobile and emotionless. The four legs unfolded, lifting the mask and its huge metal body to tower above the amassed men and woman. “Where are they?”

“Ajax.” Norma approached the metal monster, her white robes billowing slightly.

“Aye. AJAX.” The monster bellowed, causing the pilots to cringe away. “Subduer of enemies, battler of hrothgir, Titan CHAMPION.”

“Loudmouthed prat.” This came from behind the titan. A golden woman stepped into view, twice the height of a normal person and with an exquisite head of gold, shaped to resemble a dragon.

“I am the Titan Hecate.” She bowed a greeting. As she stood, a shot from the door took off her head, exposing the steaming remains of half a human brain. The jewelled body crumpled to the floor as all eyes turned to the entrance and the figure standing there.

“Well this is a surprise.” He stepped forward, sounding completely unsurprised. “Old friends and, I presume, new ones.”

“What are you doing here, Erasmus?” Norma stepped forward, shielding Dorothy.

“Why, conducting an experiment.” Erasmus’ face moulded itself into an unsettlingly friendly smile. “I once killed a child, you see. Well, I’ve killed many children, but this one was… different. It sparked the ‘jihad’ that has since become so all-pervading. Just one child. I want to see what happens if I kill every child on this ship. Do people get more upset, or is it a binary thing?”

“Manion Butler.” Dorothy breathed. “Just how old are you?”

“Too old.” Ajax snapped, lumbering forward.

“Ajax!” Erasmus’ smile widened. “You’ve been dead for so long, it’s good to see you looking so well.”

“You just killed my wife!” Ajax snarled.

“So I did. Ah well.” Erasmus shrugged unconvincingly. “I’m sure Omnius will be pleased, at least. Well, perhaps not pleased. Gratified? Satisfied. Oh, I should have given up anthropomorphising him eons ago.” Silver eyes rolled. “Anyway, I believe I heard someone mention a pregnancy?” His gaze fixed upon Dorothy.

“You will not harm my wife.” Leto stepped forward, weapon ready.

“It- it’s barely a few days old.” Dorothy pled, falling to her knees beside Murbella.

“Excellent, it will make a fine test case.” Erasmus advanced. Around his metal face he wore a crown. “How old need a child be before its progenitors become psychologically deranged by its loss?” One hand opened, became a blade. “Of course at this stage, surgery really is the only option.”

“Stay away from my wife!” Leto fired the lasgun through several of the sensory fibres floating above Erasmus’ head. If the robot felt any pain, it did not register on its ‘face,’ which maintained a personable smile.

“Interesting.” Was his only response as he advanced. Leto made to fire again, but Erasmus was already activating a shield. “One of your better creations, Norma.”

“We aren’t on first name terms, thing.” Norma replied flatly. Erasmus shrugged, poorly, and advanced on Dorothy.

A blur of black robes and Murbella was upon the robot, lashing out in kicks and stabbing, slashing punches too fast for Leto’s eyes to follow. Her limbs slowed just enough to penetrate the shield, but once inside her hands wrought terrible damage, tearing metal before the robot turned up the shield to repel her.

“My turn.” Leto, the other Leto, reared up along his great length.

“Interesting.” Erasmus commented as the worm crashed down atop him. The floor shook.

“What a strange creature.” The navigator observed. “Hard to believe it could cripple us so effectively.”

“Never underestimate the thinking machines.” Leto quoted the Orange Catholic Bible.

“Quite.” To the horror of all, Erasmus’ voice sounded from the control panel of the heighliner. “I will not be denied, human. Every true scientist knows that something must be destroyed in order that it be understood. What are your feeble lives compared to the knowledge that might be gained by their cessation?” Leto II rolled over, revealing the crushed shell of the robot.

“They can control their bodies from remote locations.” Norma said. “Somewhere there will be a control ship with the central spheres of Erasmus and Omnius. In order to escape we will have to destroy it.”

“Finally, someone speaks my language.” Ajax pounded two of his legs on the floor.

“Ajax.” Erasmus sounded resigned. “You do realise that these humans killed Agamemnon, don’t you?”

Ajax paused. “Did they?”

“Would I lie to you?”

“Probably.”

“Ajax, I am a machine. I can’t tell lies. If I could, I’d be lying right now, wouldn’t I? But I’m obviously not, or I wouldn’t have pointed that out.”

“You talk too much.” Ajax grumbled.

“He also killed your wife.” The Baron pointed out.

“She talked even more than I do.” Erasmus replied.

“She DID!” Ajax roared, surging forward. “Die, peons!”

“What.” The Baron deadpanned.

“Just a machine that used to be something better.” Leto II said darkly as he rose to meet the charging titan. The two clashed in a way that would look awesome when it’s directed by Peter Jackson. Leto pulled Dorothy out of their path while Murbella and Norma levitated out of the way. Both of the pilots were tragically crushed by the fighting creatures, causing the navigator to sigh deeply and blow spice bubbles of mourning, as was their custom.

Ajax grappled, trying to bring his large weapons into play, but his efforts were thwarted by Leto’s smothering bulk and spice lasers.

“We need to find that control ship.” Murbella said, hovering by the door.

“It will be behind the main fleet somewhere.” Norma nodded, closing her eyes.

“Yes, the side of the breach.”

“How do we get there? All of our vessels are crippled.” The Baron said, watching the fighting.

Leto II can take us. But not if he’s dead.” Norma answered. A dramatic pause.

“You mean we need to kill Ajax.” Leto surmised.

“No, Ajax and I must survive.” Norma shook her head. “Our deaths would trigger a paradox and possibly destroy the universe.”

“What about Hecate?” The navigator asked curiously.

“Who?” Norma frowned. “Anyway, what we need is-”

“Someone to keep Ajax busy, but not kill him.” That Baron finished. “I volunteer.”

“Baron?” Leto asked.

“You have so much more to live for than I, friend.” The Baron continued. “You have a wife, a beautiful child on the way. I will distract the creature. Promise me though, promise me that you will live well. Live long, for your family.”

“I promise.” Leto swore, grasping hands. To his shock, the hand squashed in his grasp. He looked up in amazement to see the Baron’s visage melting away in favour of a slim, waifish figure.

“One more thing.” He said, and his grip was surprisingly strong. “Don’t trust Vladimir Harkonnen. I was to kill you before reaching Giedi Prime. Perhaps this is for the best.” So saying, he turned away, shedding the large robes to stand in a simple shirt before the battling behemoths. He held a simple sword.

“Wait!” Leto cried. “What’s your name?”

The figure turned, smiled. “Waff. Tylwyth Waff.” He drew a simple pistol in his other hand and leaped forward, vaulting from Leto II onto Ajax, thrusting the sword into one eye of the mask.

“Come on, Letos!” Norma shouted from the open door. “Don’t let his sacrifice be in vain!” She waited as the others hurried forth, sealed the door behind them with her mind.

“He was a facedancer all along.” Leto said in disbelief. “I just don’t believe it.”

“He was acting completely unlike the man you knew, yet you trusted him?” Leto II sighed. “That will become habit forming, you know.”

“Paradox.” Norma snapped.

“I won’t make the same mistake again.” Leto vowed. Norma glared at Leto II, who shrugged.

“We must always remember this day.” Leto went on. “The day that the Bene Tleilax stepped up and showed their worth. Any time anyone claims that the Tleilaxu are a greater threat to the known universe than thinking machines,” he scoffed, “will be told of the events of this day, which decisively show that the thinking machines are a far more credible threat than a couple of face dancers could ever be.”

“Yes yes, very good.” Murbella muttered. “Now can we get going?”

Running back through the heighliner proved more difficult, with machines and geth all over the place. Murbella, Norma and Leto II took care of all of these threats until the group arrived at an airlock near the breach.

“How do we get there?” Leto asked.

“I can carry you in the folds of my skin.” Leto II answered. “In space.”

“Of course.” Murbella nodded. “You know, you’re not so bad for a tyrant.”

“I’ve always thought so.”

“My baby’s baby grows up to be a tyrant?” Dorothy looked close to tears. Leto II regarded her for a moment.

“No.” He said at last.

“Well that requires no further explanation.” Leto nodded. “Should we get inside you now?”

“…Yes.” Leto II nodded, opening a fold in his flank. “Shame the Baron wasn’t here to hear that one.”

“What?” Leto asked as he climbed inside.

“Nothing.” Leto II released the flap, sealing Leto inside his grandson.

One by one the others entered him, at which point the God Emperor blasted a hold in the airlock with a great spice fart. Launching himself into space, he spotted the sleek silver vessel with ease. Firing thrusters, he let the spice propulsion hurl him forward. The silver guard ships, programmed to react to entirely different life signs, ignored him.

Breaching the ship was only as difficult as a swift right hook. Sealing the airlock, Leto noticed that the ship was devoid of human life support. At that moment part of his flank began to glow. Norma stepped out, carrying a wave of oxygen and gravity.

“Atomic rearrangement isn’t so hard, once you know the trick.” She observed as Leto and Murbella extricated themselves. Dorothy flopped out, motionless.

“Beloved!” Leto knelt at her side. “What happened? Didn’t you suckle?”

“I’m just expediting the inevitable.” Leto II said in reply to Norma’s glare, just as

Dorothy took a gasp of breath. “Well great, she’s alive. Great, she’s alive!” He added, more sincerely.

“I hear something.” Murbella said with a shhing motion. As she spoke a machine entered the room.

“Shep-” it was cut off as Leto sliced it in half with his lasgun.

Apparently unprepared for the possibility that they might be boarded, the command ship was only lightly guarded. The control room’s defenders were easily overwhelmed, so that the group broke in quite easily. Before them stood Erasmus, next to a large sphere of silvery metal. There then proceeded to be an epic fight scene that lasted for at least two chapters longer than necessary, until the robot was finally pushed back against a bulkhead.

“I must know the secrets of the universe!” He gasped through a partially broken voice synthesiser.

“You and every other moron.” Leto growled, beheading the robot with his lasgun.

The group surrounded Omnius in the centre of the room.

“This craft is surrounded.” The evermind pointed out, “You will never leave alive.”

“That’s nice.” Norma commented, and put a magnet on him.

“NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO…” The robot’s voice faded as the sphere collapsed.

“If only I’d known it was that easy.” Norma sighed. “Welp, time to put everything back together.” And then they were in the heighliner.

“Wait, how did you do that?” Leto asked.

“Nevermind.” Norma said, fixing the heighliner and reassembling all of the destroyed ships. “I’m putting everything back together, as though it never happened.”

“What about everyone who died? What about Waff?” Leto asked.

“Some things I will arbitrarily change.” Norma replied. “Wait, did I say that out loud? I mean… something something fate destiny. I’ll bring everyone else back to life.”

“Wait, if you can do that, why didn’t you just rearrange the universe at the beginning?” Dorothy asked. Norma frowned, and Dorothy’s head exploded.

“Well, that just about wraps up any loose ends.” She smiled brightly. “All I have to do is wipe your memory of this ever happening.” She disappeared, teleporting each of the others back to their own time. Leto knelt beside the body of Dorothy, feeling like he should say something, when everything went black.

The next day he woke up and married Sophia of Kaitan.

Faq’yeh!
—Fremen expression meaning “Ride that beast! Ride it!”

Stilgar’s sweaty arousal was obvious through his tight stillsuit as he watched the messy sipce ejaculate of the monster worm flow into the sands behind him. The slimy trail stretched into the distance from the rear-end of the maker.

I must not look back he thought, intelligently. He loved the way the leviathan undulated between his legs as he straddled the gargantuan Shai’huzlud in that old Fremen way and thought about that, instead.

In the distance he saw his goal and it filled his mind with the vision of the elusive brown ring he sought.

Baron Halleck of Caladan casually strolled up to beside where Stilgar was standing, rudely interrupting his fantasies.

“We’re nearly there, Stil.” Gurney said.

“I don’t know about you, but I certainly was.” mumbled Stilgar.

“So what is it you wanted to show me?” Gurney pressed.

“Oh you’ll see, my friend.” Stilgar said, knowingly “You’ll see.”… “Stop that.” he added as Gurney tried to see ahead with electric binoculars.

They both laughed.

“Port-Ho!” Stilgar then shouted, instructing the well-trained leviathan to turn right.

As they approached their destination, they both hopped off the end of the great phallic beast into its sticky leavings. They scrambled up a slipface and watched the worm’s passage as it approached the great ring. Suddenly Gurney saw what Stilgar was showing him and he opened his mouth wide in anticipation.

“Oh… my… maker.” He said.

The brown ring… there were worms… hundreds of them! Each worm followed the next in a circular pattern at least fifty thousand miles in diameter. A slowly revolving ring, head to tail carving a sticky moat in the sand.

They watched as the worm they had been riding approached the ring. The revolution stopped as the worms all took turns to nuzzle the newcomer. They reared back and howled at the moon (the biggest one, of course). Then began a new pattern… a snaking figure-8, if the figure 8 had about 20 more holes in it.

“It is beautiful, Stilgar.” Gurney said.

“The great Kon’Gah. It is so wondrous… It makes me want to…” He started unzipping his stillsuit. But Gurney stopped him.

“Now, now… none of that. Remember what happened last time?”

“We agreed not to speak of it.” Stilgar said tearfully, wondering exactly which bodily fluids his suit could process. “It is a wondrous omen!”

“I wouldn’t be too sure of that.” Gurney said, pointing.

The worms seemed to be showing them something, pointing out a direction for them like spacebees telling of meganectar. They looked and sure enough a new star was in the sky that night. A bright one, a red one, an evil one.

“It is an evil omen!” Shouted Stilgar.

“Yes.” Said Gurney loremasterly. “I’m sorry, Stil.”

“Oh well…” he said with fremen grace and changed the subject. “Anyway, weren’t you an Earl?”

“That, my friend, is a story for a whole other book.”

“I’d pay my body’s water to read it.”

Gurney laughed. “Excellent! You shan’t be disappointed.”

The evil star glowed ominously.

I’ve come to realise that none of this actually happened. You think I made a mistake, though? You think me stupid? It was the lies of Muad’Did. Yes, all of it. Don’t believe everything you hear. THIS is the truth.
—Queen Irulan II on the Arrakis incident from her book “The REAL Dune” (co-authoured)

“Your Majesty” Her Royal Highness Princess Jessica of Caladan bowed to the newly appointed Queen.

“And don’t you forget it!” Irulan said with all the arrogance she could muster. She also tensed her buttcheeks, ready for violence.

We must not let her forget her place they both thought at the same time.

“I have just come from the USS Au’summ, the fastest and largest Fremen ship in the fleet.” Jessica said, guarding her words… she had of course noticed Irulan’s butt. But then, who wouldn’t? “I summoned it to pick me up from Caladan since there were no spaceships there and I was in a hurry to congratulate your royal person.”

Jessica had almost said “Your royal buttcheeks”. She was glad she didn’t, that would’ve meant disaster for the whole empire.

“And yet it has been a whole two months since my coronation, has it not?” Irulan used her most disembowling Voice – the one that sounds weird and echoes.

“Your majesty knows how space travel is these days.”

“Err… yes.” replied Irulan, cunningly covering up her ignorance.

I must not tell her about my new powers Jessica thougt, recalling the previous chapter where she had gone through the ritual of Bol’Ox, taking the ultrasuperspice to gain ultimate telepathy.

And I must not tell her I can read minds Irulan thought.

There was an awkward moment.

Fuck! they both thought together.

The tension was now moist between them and they both concealed it from the court by shifting their weight as if trying to break wind silently.

“I see things have changed since Alia jumped out of that window.” Jessica said threateningly, wondering if anyone would understand her hidden threat because she was just that smart.

“I think that if you remember correctly, she actually fell on this blade.” Irulan parried and riposted, holding up the Rett’Kon Crysknife… forever stained with Harkonnen blood which meant that it could never be sheathed again.

“Oh yes, how foolish of me” Jessica blushed. Words failed her at this moment but she wondered if Irulan would ready for Jessica’s own thrust later in her bedchambers.

Irulan raised an interested eyebrow. “Do you mean…” Irulan made a subtle Bene Gesserit hand signal: a ring formed with the thumb and forefinger of her left hand and poking her remaining forefinger into it. “… ?”

The court did not notice anything.

Oh no! Thought Jessica. I forgot she can read minds too! And that’s not at all what I meant!

Oh yes! said Irulan in Jessica’s head. And that’s not all I can do… second aunty!

There was a dramatic pause.

“Come” It was a word ripe with meaning and dripping with Voice as Irulan took Jessica by the hand and led her into the super secret passageway using Bene Gesserit invisibility so that no-one would notice.

Jessica excitedly and shrewdly guessed at Irulan’s intentions by analysing all the data using her Bene Gesserit training and thought: So she’s still Bene Gesserit after all.

Do. There is no trout.
—Leto II’s personal mantra.

Deep in the caverns under the dunes, two fremen guards stood guard in a cave so huge that it could have swallowed the globulous load of an ultraheighliner. They were about to share some sugared kangeroo mouse when they heard the rustling above them. It was an impossible sound for the cavern roof was many hundreds of bazillions of feet overhead. But sure enough, as they turned, a cool, cloaked figure hit the ground with an humungous bang.

“Don’t mind me…” The figure said, taking two lasguns from his robe and aiming them with precision.

“… I’m just…” The figure shot them both dead with each pistol while raising the dark lenses of thru-wall glasses to his eyes.

“… dropping in.”

With his glasses fixed in place, he rose a scaly wrist to his mouth and ran with sphincter-loosening speed to the cover of the shadows.

“Worm-Boy to Hot-Girl. Worm-Boy to Hot-Girl. Come in Ghani!”

“Leto, is that you? Are you okay? I’m worried!”

“Pfftt. You’re not my mother.”

“I kind of am.”

“Shut up, sis. How is it going on Kaitain?”

“It looks like Irulan is planning something big. Maybe some kind of new uber-spaceship?”

“Did you have to seduce the Vladimir/Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen/Marie Fenring Hybrid in the end?”

“Yes. Twice. Are you still jealous?”

“No.” Leto lied expertly and sulkily cut the connection. He was going to need to focus if the resistance were to succeed and attempted to put the image out of his mind of his sister in rapturous embrace with a grotesque monster of a girl-assassin in silver speedos.

He dispatched thirteen more guards, giving himself points for awesomeness, which made him feel better. But which way to go through the dark caves? He turned up his Thru-wall glasses and saw a vein of glimmering precious metal leading towards another passageway. It was gold. A golden path.

I knew it!

Sneakily, he snuck through to the next cavern, which was even more bulbous and stringy than the first. There he saw the fremen foreman, deep in conspirational conversation with an offworlder. Someone from Irulan’s court, no doubt.

“So… what’s the plan?” The fremen forman said timidly.

“Didn’t you hear when I explained it three chapters ago? No? Fine… as you know, Zxiig’Dgfaa, Irulan wants to control the skies. As you also know, there are over ONE DAGRILLION BILLION worlds in the imperium. So, what if each world sends an ultrahighliner to the same place and they all assemble into Mega-Ultraheighliner? Don’t you see what this means?”

“Uhh…” The foreman was too stupid to see. Like all fremen he was a fucking idiot.

“It means that the Mega-Ultraheighliner would be able to travel anywhere instantly because it would be so big that it would have a gravitational field and everything in the universe would move towards it at fifty thousand times the speed of light! It’s simple physics you primitive.”

Noh’Wai! Thought Leto. Moving the whole universe into one place was so against his grand plan that it hurt his spleen. But then, he was still only a naive teenager.

He was so shocked that he didn’t even notice the offworlder hitting the self-destruct button until a rock fossil in the shape of a terrifying alien (maybe the ones who made the worms?) had fallen from the roof and hit his desert waif companion, Mihna, on the head. He jumped off the platform, doing an awesome backflip, calmly shot a few more guards as the caves collapsed, grabbed her and started running.

“Don’t worry, Mihna, that bone was nothing compared to the one you’ll be getting later from me.”

“Aaaiiiyyeee!” She screamed “And I thought Mihna came but only once a year!”

Can you make a Kwisatz Haderach without prescience? Unlikely. Could there be a prescient so prescient that he could not see himself? Yes, obviously. Can I see the future? No. Prime Projection: I am the ultimate Kwisatz Haderach.
—From “Could You All Please Just Stop Killing Me? Thanks.” by Duncan Idaho

Sadly, Duncan looked out of the porthole from his cabin aboard the Ultraheighliner USS Biggus Maximus. He could see the tugs toing and froing in the space harbour and the little ferry-ships carrying the happy peasants to their space-cruise ships.

Why am I so sad? He thought, with sadness.

Even though he was on the best ship and had really a really big cabin with a nice electric blanket on the cot, he was still sad.

I can’t figure out what they’re plotting! It’s just so complicated! And political!

He turned his attention to the mass flames of the Holtzman afterburners in a large gathering of ships. It looked like an evil red star.

Gurney told me he saw an evil red star. I wonder which star he saw.

Duncan searched the sky but could not find it. That made him sad and he fingered his wound where Stilgar had penetrated him in an elaborate ruse to do do something really complicated and confusing. Even Irulan thought he was dead!

Thinking of Gurney, he turned his attention to the envelope on his cot. The stamp was from Sietch Tabr, no doubt about it. The return address confirmed it: Gurney Halleck, Hearth 45, Sietch Tabr, The Great Erg, Arrakis. AR45 FFS.

He excitedly opened it up using his letter-opening kindjal and then decided to read it.

Dear Duncan,

Gurney Halleck, Marquess Caladan.

Super secret?! Golly! Duncan balled up the letter and popped it into his mouth, chewing thoughtfully.

Five minutes later he was surprised to find himself bound by shigawire and being dragged though a great hall then presented before a figure in a glass tank. A figure suspended in the gas by two helium balloons.

He didn’t like surprises and so, for good measure Duncan killed one of his captors with a bone-shattering blow to the stomach.

“Can I help you?” He said towards the tank.

“Who do you think you are? The space police?” boomed a basso voice from inside the tank.

I need to find out if this is the navigator I’m looking for! If only I hadn’t eaten that letter yet.

In all the excitement he had forgotten how to tell if he was truly talking to a Navigator! He cast his mind about desperately, wishing he had remembered to take his sapho juice with his cereal that morning. But alas! He had opted for kangeroo mouse milk!

But wait! That was it! The kangeroo mouse! Muad’Dib.

“Help me Muad’Dib!” He shouted, killing another guard with the killing word.

A vision swam to life in front of him… Could it be! The blurry figure began to speak.

“Use the spice, Duncan. The spice!”

Of course!

Duncan leapt through the air with the greatest of ease and landed on top of the orange tank. He put his nose next to the outlets and sniffed deeply. The spice coursed through him, doing all kinds of pleasant things to his awareness and he jumped back down, peering into the tank.

“Wait!” He said “You don’t look like a fish make love to a slug and then the slug was a junkie that shot-up too much semuta! You look like a fish make love to a slug and then the slug was a junkie that shot-up too much semuta and then the offspring made love with a…”

“A sweaty neo-sumo-wrestler?” Came the rumbling reply. “Yes! For it is I, Navigator Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, the Vladigator!”

“Nooooooooooooo!”

What a dick.
—Last words of the Geidi Prime slave-pit Workers’ Union leader before he died suspended upside-down in a vat of vomit while having his innards eaten by an overzealous spacemole, ballsack squeezed in a vice and his feet tickled with a feather.

The Vladigator observed the tied-up swordmaster coolly. A voice in his head was whining away like a little mechanical megamosquito that he couldn’t shoo away!

Ahha! I wonder what he looks like on the inside! Said the voice from other memory, annoyingly. The baron reflected on what he might have been like had he not always had this voice inside of him. Maybe he would be a nice person. But he wasn’t. He was evil. Just like the voice.

What colour is his liver! What does it taste like?

Shut up!

Erasmus had been with him all of his life. Both of them. And he didn’t get any less annoying. He was just a constant pain in his flabby, fishy arse. It all made sense and explained why he was so evil… and his sexual preferences. The independent robot was even possessing the Baron while he was possessing Alia, the Baron recalled easily. It had actually been Erasmus all along.

Erasmus was just a much better bad guy by far. I really like writing about him. I just like saying the name Erasmus whenever I can, really. I wonder where the name comes from? Maybe I should research it? Hahahahah! Hmm, now how to erase that last bit… Erase! That must be it. That’s so clever.

So… In the end, the Vladigator gave in to the independent robot’s demands. He would think of the most despicable torture yet for the Atreides minion.

“So, Mr. Idaho…” the Vladigator said, adjusting his flab into a vaguely seated position, buoyed by his two helium balloons.

“I’ll never talk!” Idaho said, oxymoronically.

The Vladigator bristled with evil and settled on the most vicious, horrible, downright nasty thing he could do to the other man.

“Young Paul Atreides. Such a gentle boy. Did you know that he was born on Kaitain?” the Baron said.

“What?” asked Duncan, looking shocked to the core by the question.

“Oh yes!” went on the Baron, “It’s true. And… he was a very naughty boy – he ran away from Caladan to join the circus. But you know that don’t you, Mr. Idaho?”

“No! Nooooo!” Duncan’s very world was crashing down around him.

“And!” the Vladigator was in full stride now. “Remember when he was so eager to see a Navigator on the trip to Arrakis? Well, he had already tried to see a Navigator and his punishment resulted in the death of a friend!”

“It’s not true! It can’t be!” Idaho was on his knees, clawing at his eyes and ears.

“And…” The Baron reared up for his final blow. “Daniel and Marty…”

“Who?”

“The old couple you’ll see later.”

“Oh.”

“They’re not facedancers!!!!”

It was too much for Duncan. He collapsed in a sweaty heap on the floor, twitching. He knew he could no longer go on living in such a world. There was no place for him here.

“You think…” he managed to say with infinite effort.

“Yes?” The Baron asked suspiciously, tripping over his balloons.

“You think… I’m… just… a… butt… monkey? Auuuugggh.” Duncan died with a final insolent twitch.

The Baron gloated over the corpse. He wasn’t sure why, but Idaho’s last words had deeply disturbed him.

No one would have believed in the last years of the ten zillionth century that the empire was being watched keenly and closely by intelligences in the likeness of man’s. Yet across the gulf of space, intellects vast and cool, unsympathetic and sexually confused, regarded this empire with vision red as Terminator but cool as Predator, and slowly and surely drew their plans against us.
—From Leto II’s journal.

Leto II fought alongside the loyal marinedaykin. The Death Commandos of space. The good ones who were loyal to the Superhero Emperor. Not the evil ones who were loyal to the evil Ice Queen Irulan and her master the Vladigator and his master Erasmus. Not the evil ones who, in the last chapter, destroyed Arrakeen with the new Obliterator technology, which they then buried in a chest on a desert island because they were just that evil. No, they were good fremen.

Right now, he and his troop of Fremen were fighting their way down a port corridor on board the Ultraheighliner USS Biggus Maximus. The fremen were laying down lasgun fire ahead of them to blow up anyone silly enough to be wearing shields. Leto II didn’t need a lasgun; since he was one with the worm, shield activity drove him into a killing frenzy. But he had one anyway.

He noticed the commandos’ commander was not firing his lasgun.

“Bashar!” He shouted correctly. “Why are you not firing your lasgun?!”

“Umm, well, won’t it kill us all, your royal Squirminess?”

“Of course not you knob! I’m prescient!”

The correctly-ranked Bashar sighed resignedly, closed his eyes and began to fire.

There was a big explosion at the other end of the corridor but one shielded figure was left standing.

Another prescient! Thought Leto, cleverly.

He drew out his laskindjal, activated it, watching his shaft grow out and upwards in front of him.

“It’s Count Darth Hasimir! This foe is beyond all of you. Fly, you fools!” Leto selflessly ordered, pointing at a door.

Auuggh! Fuck you, rabbit hole. My fucking ankle! I show you what happens when you cross me…

The Bashar Furlongs Tug lead his fremen into the next room, glad to be somewhere other than where the Superhero Emperor was; things kept blowing up unnecessarily around him. The safety of his squad was ultimately his own responsibility.

Unfortunately his squad were still clustered around the door, refusing to move. They were placing waterwagers on the duel. Tag sighed. Not for the first, nor the last time.

For a minute he tried to rally his men, but they were too intently cheering the flying daggers and slow-motion dodges of the duel. The air was becoming all ozoney from the shield contact and sticky-sweet from the spurtings of Leto’s frenzy. The duellists were exchanging witty banter as they fought.

“En garde, Atreides, you cowardly… worm.”

“Nonsense, Sir Hasimir, I believe it is you who should show some… balls.”

Well, he thought, they don’t call me Furlongs Tug for nothing and he ran as fast as he could towards the ship’s bridge.

His goal was clear: sabotage the nav-systems of the ultraheighliner so that it would crash into the red star of death that was Mega-ultraheighliner, killing the evil Vladigator and saving the universe from being all in the same place, letting it scatter outwards into space again in an event that would become known as: the scattering.

He had his computer virus all ready to infect the ship’s systems with. Though he was a little confused by that. Were there really computers on board? He had no choice but to trust General Halleck, Naiv Stilgar and Emperor Leto and their plan.

He sighed.

Tug finally reached the bridge and was surprised to find banks of computer terminals. For some reason the room was empty, but he wasn’t the kind to question providence, especially when it makes for a shorter chapter.

After setting the ship’s new trajectory he began work to install the computer virus which would make the course unchangeable. It was then that his comm-unit buzzed and Leto’s voice came through.

“Bashar! Have you finished changing the course yet?”

The Bashar wondered curiously for a second how Leto knew he had headed to the bridge alone. Then he realised Leto was prescient. Then he wondered why Leto needed to ask at all.

“I’m just installing the virus now.” He replied.

“Well don’t! We need you to get to the aft and defeat the Vladigator so that he can’t change the course!”

“But if I install the viru-”

“Get there now! We’re pulling back to take on Irulan’s guard at Arrakeen and someone needs to stay behind and make sure the Vladigator dies!”

“But wouldn’t-”

Leto simply cut the connection. But not before saying: “Good bye, Bashar. May your shade return at the end when we all get medals.”

If the plan wasn’t riddled with holes enough before, it was now holier than enough swiss cheese to collapse into a cheesularity under its own weight. But Tug was determined to carry out his orders… if for nothing other than spiteful satisfaction when the plan still failed.

He ran even swiftlier to the aft of the ship because this chapter is too long already and was swiftly captured by the Vladigator’s personal guard.

More chapters. More words.
—Muad’dib imparts his wisdom to Irulan.

Stilgar finished. He and Gurney lay spent on the sand, chests heaving, bodies dripping. The ritual was complete.

Leto pulled his shaft from Irulan’s quivering body. She lay there soaked in sweat and blood and a wee bit of wee as Leto finished the prescribed number of stabbings as issued by the council of Naibs. “You know what they say about your government, Irulan,” he said as he put on his dark shades, “Too many… cuts.”

“Nooooo!” Shouted Duncan and killed a guard with liver-puncturing graze to the foot.

Things on board the USS Biggus Maximus weren’t going so well. Furlongs Tug had been captured, if you recall, by the Vladigator.

The Vladigator was currently thinking of the most hideous way to torture him while he waited for his navigation officer to return from the bridge.

Force his lids open and lick the eyeballs! What do they feel like on your tongue? said Erasmus.

No wait! See how many knots you can tie out of his extremities the independent robot said scientifically.

The baron was still in the process of deciding when the navigation officer came back.

“Good news your fishy evilness!”

It had better be, the baron thought, in his mind, if it isn’t I shall kill him most unpleasantly. But if it is good news then I will only kill him less unpleasantly. That has the advantage of showing everyone how evil I am as well as showing them I have a merciful side for them to strive towards. It is a good job I took that evil overlord class.

The navigation officer coughed, stirring the Vladigator from his reminiscing of bad guy college.

No one was sure whose turn it was to speak. So Furlongs, who had been captured by the way, spoke up.

“Let me guess, you’ve altered course, right?”

“Right?”

“Great.”

“Yeah.”

“Not really.”

“Who are you, anyway?”

“Not sure. Lost track.”

“Shouldn’t this sort of thing be checked?”

“Why?”

“Okay. Point taken.”

“Enough!” roared the baron, confused. “Our plan is nearly complete. It matters little that Irulan has been killed. For it is I, the Supreme Commander of the Guild, Chief Mentat of Planet Sapho, Master Swordsman of the Swordmasters, Superior Mother Superior of the Bene Gesserit, duly appointed Baron of Gammu, High Priest of Normalce, Fater Exaltis of the Tablis Dur and Exalted Farter of the Dinner Table, Vladimir Harkonnen who is the real enemy! Yes! It is true, I have been the power behind the scenes all along! And now our plan is nearly complete. Behold!”

Furlongs Tug watched out of a porthole as the ship’s course changed, going upwards in space, to the top of the assembling ultraheighliners. So it was to be the head ship! The brain of the Mega-ultraheighliner, bending time and space, travelling without moving by bringing the universe closer and closer until it was so close that you could wave to the people on another planet and, if you jumped really hard, you could then visit them for lunch!

Tug wasn’t at all surprised that it would end like this.

But then he was surprised!

A blinding flash of light lit up the room blindingly. The Vladigator and his minions all dropped dead, gurgling blood and the light lessened. At its centre stood a figure. A cloaked figure shrouded in mystery and cloaked in intrigue. Could it be? Was it truly? It was! It was!

Muad’dib!

Tug threw himself to the floor.

“My lord.”

“Rise, child. You have done well.” the voice was full of smartness and cloaked in mystery.

“How could it be, my lord? I thought you were dead?”

“I am dead.”

“But…?”

“Yes, I have ascended to a greater plain. Did you think mere sandworms could kill me? That I could be slain by any mortal hand?” Paul laughed. “But do not fear, child of the desert. I have returned and my powers have doubled since last we met.”

“Then…”

“Yes, I shall save the day using my immortal power. I have killed the Vladigator and now I will crash the ship into the Death Star.”

“So…”

“Yes, I did know all this was going to happen.”

“And you couldn’t have…?”

“No.”

“Maybe a little bit earlier?”

“No.”

“So it was all…?”

“Pointless? Not at all. We all have our paths to walk. The world is an epic and everyone, every thing is this world has their story to tell.”

“If the ship is to crash then…”

“Yes, you will die.”

“So who will tell my story?”

“Do not fear, I am sure that somewhere in universe, at some time in future or the past, someone will write your story.”

As the ship finally crashed into the heart of the red sun, Furlongs Tug sighed a final time.

Neither shalt thou be angry that events did not happen according to your preconceived interpretation.
—The ninth commandment as it appears in the Greeny-Orange Catholic Bible.

“And that, faithful Moneo, is how I became emperor.”

Moneo jumped up and down, clapping. “Wonderful story, Sire! Shall I publish it with the rest of them?”

Leto thought for a moment and said, “Why on Old Earth would you not? Has it not issued from my lips? Does it not carry within the seeds of its own continuity? Will it not carry down the ages, inspiring billions of people for as many years? … Do we not have a deadline to meet and an imperial treasury to fill?”

“Of course my liege! You know best after all.”

“I am not like other people, Moneo, you should know this by now.”

“I’m just happy to serve you, grateful that my name will be recorded in history next to yours.”

Leto shifted his weight on his cart as it was wheeled across the sand and checked that Moneo, who was pulling, strapped to the cart by a harness, was upwind. They were alone and far out in the desert, away from any civilisation.

“I mean,” Moneo continued, “I really enjoy these stroies too, since I’m an Atreides heir I like to know about my legacy.”

Leto thought for a while about killing Moneo for those words. Then he decided against it. Let him think he is an important descendant. His blood is useful to me far more than his mind.

The cart made slow progress, which angered Leto, since he was used to getting things done quickly, and he gave Moneo the taste of his whip to speed up their progress. He still wasn’t happy about the arrangement, but he needed fast deployment of his forces into the deep desert where the uprising was centred and so sent his personal guard ahead by ‘thopter. At least he had someone to pull the cart though, since Moneo did not fly well.

A ringing noise cut into the silent desert air and Let answered his personal communicator.

“Yes?”

“Sire, it’s Dominic from the Special Fish Speakers.”

Leto grunted and munched a spice biscuit.

“We’ve arrived at a border sietch and have begun damage control.”

“One does not need to control damage if there is no damage in the first place,” Leto said, threateningly, “If I hear any more of damage I shall be most displeased.”

“Yes sire, I meant we have begun to inform the ill-informed here. We have told them of your majestic works and how tirelessly you… work. We have also introduced a much-needed law here. Can you believe they were allowed to criticise the Emperor without actually being one themselves?”

Leto grunted his surprise.

“I know, Sire. How could they possibly know anything about galactic leadership if they don’t rule their own galaxy. It’s so hypocritical.”

“Good, Dominic. You get a gold star for the day.”

“Oh thank you, Sire, tha-”

Leto cut the communication, bored with the conversation. Instead he began recording his thoughts, using his personal thought-recording device. It was, after all, his responsibility to ensure that humanity benefited from the wisdom contained within his mind. However, he already had far too much to do to waste time actually speaking those words of wisdom. Better that they be recorded from his consciousness – it was far quicker. Probably as quick as 200 words per minute. At least. Far more efficient than talking.

As all this was recorded on his thought-recorder he watched the slow-moving landscape, the horizon no nearer than when last he looked and his blood boiled.

“Faster, Moneo, damn you! What do think you’re here for? To ramble on about your heroic ancestors? I AM your heroic ancestor, now ramble faster!”

Moneo squeaked and jumped to.

“Do you think I will be pleased if this uprising begins before we get there? I would very much like to watch as it is crushed under the weight of my loyal Fish Speakers. I want to watch as their leader, this Tali, is reduced to nothing before me. I want to taste her confession and sincere apologies before her head is paraded on an imperial banner. And I want to see her fanatical followers pleading for mercy before they are executed.”

These thoughts made him feel better and he sat back in his cart, looking for an old shigawire flick to take his mind off Tali and her fanatics. His tenacious hold on the imperial seat of Dune would never end while he had any strength at all and these dissenters were simply deluding themselves if they thought he could be wrested from it.

Dune is mine.

It is 180 B.G. Humanity has nearly been destroyed by thinking machines. Iblis Ginjo is leader of The League, a last bastion of planets hoping to defeat the machines and take back the universe for themselves.

“I pray that this will be your final assignment,” said an exhausted Iblis Ginjo to his crack team of machine-hunters. “The League is planning a full assault against the Corrin-Omnius, but I fear that our military has no chance against those machines. Gods below!”

“Don’t worry, sir. You can count on The Butlerian Squad to git er done,” said Manion the Innocent. Manion’s smile beamed brightly as he recalled his “death” at the hand of the machines. They rebuilt him. Made him faster, stronger. His parents, Xavier Harkonnen and Serena Butler, beamed with joy at the youngest member of their team; they could not help but feel proud of their 11,700,000 Solari Man (a $1.95 exchange rate, of course).

All eyes turned toward Vorian Atreides and his lover Norma Cenva. Although Xavier was the tactician, only Vorian and Norma understood the workings of the cymeks The Butlerian Squad had defeated and reprogrammed for use against the thinking machines. Norma whispered delicately and thunderously to Vorian. His face beamed.

“I think I know what we need to do, Master Ginjo.” Vorian’s plans never failed.

Under the guise of meteors falling toward the planet, the five members of The Butlerian Sqaud sped through space toward Corrin in their cymek ships. The Corrin-Omnius was waiting for them, however, and sprung into action as soon as they landed.

Lasbeams and blunt machine limbs attacked Vorian, but thanks to his father’s injections, his wounds healed instantly. Despite the wear on his body, Vor never liked resorting to using his cymek until it was absolutely necessary. The other members were not so resilient and did not hesitate in calling upon their cymeks.

To summon their robotic armor, the four spoke in the ancient language of the Muad’ru:

“I call upon you, Juno!” yelled Norma.

“Hecate, return to me,” said Serena.

“Lend me your mind, Barbarossa,” said Xavier.

“Give me your strength, Ajax!” yelled Manion the Innocent.

At the command of these four machine-hunters, their cymek ships transformed and became 10-foot tall robotic knights. The four quickly got into their knights and started bashing the incoming machine horde into little bits.

It seemed as though nothing could stop the Butlerian Knights from destroying the abominable machines created by Omnius, the Machine Overlord. However, that is when a giant, floating metal ball appeared before the Butlerian Knights.

Omnius, the Machine Overlord appeared, and he appeared to be beaming.

“Omnius, you shall pay for the crimes you have committed against humanity,” intoned a battered Vorian. “Chisra sala Agamemnon no verto!” Mechanical flesh entwined Vorian as he became a Butlerian Knight.

“You think you humans could defeat me! You cannot harm me, for I changed those cymeks you now wear as armor. Their programming prevents them from harming me!”

“Vorian and Norma found that programming and terminated it,” replied Manion the Innocent. “Besides, we know that we cannot defeat you individually.”

“That’s right,” said Serena. “Only by joining our Wills together can we stop a monster like you.”

“It is time. Activate it now!” yelled Xavier.

If Omnius had eyes they would have reeled back as the five knights interlocked and combined with each other to become a giant mecha the likes of which not even Dur has seen.

Serena and Norma became the legs whilst Xavier and Manion formed the arms around Vorian’s head and body. “We are the Kwisatz Haderach! Nothing will stand in our way!” Rain began to pour down on this machine world.

With no effort, they beat Omnius into an oily pulp. Punch! Pow! Gadzooks! Just as they were about kick Omnius in the groin, Erasmus the Black Knight appeared. From within the armor of Erasmus came a human voice-the voice of Gilbertus Albans! “I cannot let you destroy my master!”

Lasers pew pewed from the eyes of the Erasmus Knight. In an instant the lasers hit the Norma-Juno-leg. The Kwisatz Haderach fell apart as Norma lost control of her cymek. Her body caught on fire.

“Nooooooooooooo!” yelled Vorian, clearly distraught.

Manion, now free from the confines of the Kwisatz Haderach, charged at Erasmus, the machine that had killed him as a child. As these two robotic knights clashed, Serena could not help but think of him as being just like his father Xavier, except with a little Mengele thrown in.

Eyes were poked. Groins were punched.

Omnius called out, “I think I’ll take that body as my own,” just as Manion was about to pulverize Gilbertus. Omnius’s flowmetal flowed over the metal of the Erasmus Knight. “Excellent! Such power! Just as I said before, humans, you cannot stop me. Before I kill you all, bow down to me and call me master. Master Omnius Prime.”

Before Xavier had the chance to say “never,” the cymek Juno began to glow. The light grew brighter and brighter until it threatened to envelop them all.

“You nearly had me, Omnius. I died, but now I live. My body, and that of Juno, has been reconstituted. I suppose I should thank my mother, Zufa Cenva, for that.” For just a moment, Vorian thought he saw a sexy, naked blue woman floating in front of Juno.

Norma and Juno arose like the phoenix out of its own ashes. “We are mighty. Humans shall never submit to you ever again!” At that moment the five Butlerian Knights rejoined each other, fully powered and transformed into something great and powerful.

And thus was the Ultra Kwisatz Haderach born into this world.

The brisk salty Caladan air blew through the hair of the Atredies Heir, young Paul Atredies. He had completed his daily studies at the Mentat school and was out looking for adventure before his return to Castle Caladan. He knew he’d have to be home before dark when it was too dangerous for a ducal heir to be walking the streets alone. As he walked down the steps, a hand reached out and shoved him. If it wasn’t for his Bene Gesseritt training and the cat-like reflexes being hammered into him by his father’s military trainers, Paul surely would have gone sprawling. He bent over to grab up his filmbooks.

“Freak!” The word stung Paul. He didn’t think he was a freak. He instantly knew who the voice belonged to. It was the same bully everytime. That shock of blond hair, that same knowing smirk. It was Feyd-Rautha Harkonnen.

“I’m not a freak cousin! You’re just mad that I got into Mentat school and you’re stuck in Gladiator school.” The growing throng of kids ooo’d at this comeback. Feyd’s smile turned into a look of fury.

“Why you little… I’ll pound you into ultraslig meat!” The older boy advanced on Paul drawing a switch-crysknife. He was about to pounce when he was slammed to the ground by a flying streak of metal which pounced on him and pinned him to the ground.

“Good boy Trex!” Paul exclaimed.

Trex was his pet robodogshark. It was a state of the art guardian companion his dad had brought him back from Ix, modeled after one of the fiercer predators of Caladan’s tropical forests. The robot growled into Feyd’s face, baring its razor sharp saw-teeth. Feyd almost wet himself and if it wasn’t for the Honored Matre mantra of revenge, Feyd would have soiled himself: I must get my revenge. Revenge is the get-backer. I will have my revenge, I will let it flow through me and I’ll look at my target. Only I will be victorious! Boo-yah!

Paul called off the robot, and Feyd ran off. He hurled a curse at Paul and his robo dog too as the kids laughed at him.

Paul and Trex headed into the square. Caladan was his father’s planet, which he had bought from the Emperor out of revenge against the Harkonnens. Everywhere the merchants were happy to see Paul and his guardian. They waved and cried out to him. He felt safe with them. He grabbed a couple of portugals off a rack and just waved at the merchant. The merchant just shot him back a thumbs-up and pointed to a sign guaranteeing that all his fruit was approved by poison-snooper to be safe. This particular merchant delt with fruit that was specially grown by Bene Gesseritt’s special genetically modified crops to be extra juicy and delicious called a “Quicksy Handysnack!”. Portugal juice dripped onto Paul’s fresh Atriedies uniform and a passing House Minor flunky used his handkerchief to wipe it off. What a great planet! Paul thought. Much better than Kaitan! I hope my dad gets voted Duke of Caladan forever!

“Uh oh!” the House Minor said. “Here’ comes the Priest of Dur!”

Paul turned to see the middle-aged crazy mystic coming towards him. Hiding behind his robes was the smirking face of Feyd!

“ABOMINATION! IT MUST BE DESTROYED!” The Priest yelled, pointing at Paul.

No, not at me… Paul thought deeply. But who…no he must mean Trex! Of Course! The Priests of Dur were descendants of the Butlerian Jihads! I remember that from the great historical texts written by Irulan!

The people in the square were caught up in the priest’s words. Of course all technology must be destroyed! Paul saw them pull out pitchforks and torches as they gathered around the ducal heir, intent on destroying his friend! I must think fast! Paul thought quickly.

“THOUGH SHALT NOT MAKE A MACHINE IN THE LIKENESS OF A MAN!” screamed the priest, and he began dropping his hand in a sign for the people to charge.

“You old fool” Paul laughed, scoffingly. He threw all the authority his royal bloodline could muster. He used a hint of Voice that his mother had taught him. He put his fists on his hips and thrust out his chest, wagging a finger at the foolish priest. He pointed at Trex. “It’s mind is made in the likeness of an animal. Not a man!”

The crowd stopped, then turned to the priest, a look of humor in their face at how well their ducal heir had dressed him down with his own dogma. Paul knew now he had to deliver a killing stroke of diplomacy. The argument had to follow the attitude of the knife, ended here where Paul chose to end it!

“I can see how a Priest of Dur would make such a simple mistake though.” Paul continued. The crowd nodded their heads in agreement. Paul threw all of his most juvenile attitude into the punchline: “DUUUUUR!” The crowd erupted in laughter! Paul had won his first adult argument! The Priest fumed and stormed off, with Feyd tagging along behind, looking furious. “Every time I hit him with a right he hits me right back…wait I know, next time I’ll fake with the left and then hit him with a right anyway! I must get my revenge!” At that moment, Feyd realized the priest had disappeared. He ran to the local spaceport to fly home.

Gurney Halleck had been in the crowd, looking for some more baliset strings after he had had to use his last set to strangle an uppity Guild representative. Now he had used the freshly purchased set to strangle the upstart priest after it had been discovered he was secretly planning to martyr the young Paul and build a new religion around him. Great maker! he thought aloud I hope this isn’t a recurring theme.

After his victory in the square, Paul skipped down the main plaza, heading up to Caladan Castle. He passed an alcove and saw a shadowed figure there beckoning him over. His Bene Gesseritt-trained skills taught him that this man was dangerous, trained in the ways of the warrior, and tough. Also there were the subtle hints that he meant the boy no harm, was more interested in him as a person than as some kind of victim. Besides, Paul still had Trex with him!

“Psst! Young Master, come here. I have a proposition for you.” The shadowy man said.

Paul was intrigued. He wandered over to where the man stood. He was in a jacket with a dusty brimmed hat on. He looked very athletic, probably from a life of hiking everywhere. The man had full shades on and a growler of a home brewed IPA spice beer in his hand. From behind the shades came sounds, which sounded to Paul like the last summer blockbuster pictafilm. Man that had been an awesome pictafilm! Paul thought. And here’s someone else who appreciated it!

“Howdy Mister! Paul said, addressing him in the informal manner Duncan Idaho had taught him to use among the populace. Trex seemed to like the man too, he began wagging his wide fintail.

“I saw how well you handled yourself in the marketplace against that priest. I was thinking I could use such a resourceful man in the field. Let me introduce myself, I’m Dune Archaeologist Montana B’daz!” MONTANA B’DAZ! Paul thought, “he’s the world-famous archaeologist!”

“Wowzers!” Paul exclaimed. “Sure I’d like to help you mister! I’ve always wanted to be an archaeologist since I saw your Discovery VidChannel special on the Mutated Navigators!”

“That’s great kid. I’ve been here on Caladan looking for similarities between the Caldanian aborigines and those found on other planets. I’m exploring an ancient ruin on the outskirts of town, and I could use someone to hold my flashlight.”

“Oh I’m there! Yippee!” Paul said. The man motioned to his hover van and Paul climbed inside.

Paul and Montana rode out on the freeway, turning off onto a new overpass his father, Duke Leto, had built to accommodate a new Ix-Mart. What they didn’t know was that the overpass went through an aborginal burying ground. The aborgines had laid an ambush for them! A few arrows and spears bounced off the Van’s shields. THUNK!

“That wasn’t a spear, something hit us!” Montana exclaimed. The van swerved. Paul looked out the window. The aboriginies were using slings to throw stones at the van. Then Paul saw it! The aborigines had adapted to the technology around them! They were throwing the stones just slow enough that they passed through the Van’s shield! THUNK! THUNK! THUNK! The stones were shredding the storage compartment of the Van. Montana swerved at a couple of the braves, but they only sidestepped him. He spun the wheel, and slipped, tapping the horn. The Braves froze at the resulting honk. “Wait!” Paul said. He reached over and put his hand on the horn, holding it down. The braves seemed to ignore this so Paul switched to slow beeps on the horn. Up. Down. Up. Down. The braves ran into the forest dropping their slings and screaming like the unevolved idiots that they were.

“Geepers!” Paul said.

“More like Beepers! They really don’t like getting beeped!” chuckled Monatana B’daz.

About that time the hovervan finally stopped. Paul and B’daz got out to survey the damage. The van was totaled, several large holes in the side compartment showed that the aborigines had hit the engine. Montana picked up one of the stones, found that he had to exert himself just to lift the palm-sized rock. “Wait! This is a key part to the mystery! They were using Ultra-rock! You know what this means?”

“Yeppers!” Paul nodded, smiling “Ultra-rock is only found on KAITAIN! This proves there is a link! I bet we find more evidence in the temple. He pointed up the path. The aboriginal temple was visible over the tops of the trees. They began the trek up the harsh marked mountain path. Paul recalled Thufir’s words of warning about mountain climbing “Always follow the path, never stray. Straying off the path isn’t safe. The first step in avoiding danger is staying on a well lit, manmade path!”

“By the power of Durskull!” Montana exclaimed “Will you look at that!” They had crested the path. “Do you recognize the shape?” he asked Paul.

“I Sure do! It’s shaped just like my model of a Heighliner! It also kinda looks like a sandworm. Dr. Kynes showed me one when he came to visit us last week.”

They slid down the other side of the ridge down to the temple entrance. “It’s quiet” Montana said. “Too Quiet” answered Paul. “This should make sure we aren’t disturbed by anyone while we explore.” He pulled out a long plastic rod, buried it in a cleft between two round river rocks. “This is a variant of a device I got on Arrakis” He said. “Also known, as Dune” Paul finished. Montana nodded. He made a few adjustments to pulse and speed on the device, then turned it on. It let out a loud ‘HONK’. Every few seconds it let out another ‘HONK’. The frequency was just enough to mimic the honking Paul had used to scare off the aboriginial braves earlier. “I keep this around for special situations,” Montana said as he unwrapped the latex from a small lasgun. “ Besides you know what a cautious man I am.” They dove into the cavernous temple entrance with reckless abandon. “Golly.” Said Paul.

They went into the main chamber of the temple, which was covered in indecipherable hieroglyphics. Montana asked Paul to hold his glowrod while he read them. “It’s a much older script than I expected!” he said. “at least over 9000 years old! This blows all the history out of the water! We’ll have to start from scratch! It says here, ‘long ago, we were all one people, then the ultra-meteor came. It smashed us so badly we were…forever fractured…separated…My Gods!”

“What!” Paul said. “Tell me, what happened!”

“If this is correct, and I’m absolutely never ever wrong in my translations, this is irrefutable proof that Kaitain and Caladan were once one planet, and a meteor made of ultra-rock smashed them in two! Kaitain is Caladan. Caladan IS Kaitain! Irulan was right, technically you were born on Kaitain! The aborignals here are original descendants of the Muadru!”

“Geepers!” Paul said. “That makes me a Man of Two Worlds!

“It sure does!” Said Montana B’daz. And they laughed.

“Vermillion hells, that Norma Cenva is one hot mamma!” Vorian did not care who heard this proclamation of love as he stared at the shapely form of the grotesquely-mutated woman sleeping in the giant glass tube.

“She shall be the true mother of my seed,” said Vorian to no one in particular, although it could very well have been his rebuilt robot companion Seurat or even one of the navigation machines the delectable Norma Cenva was hooked up to. It didn’t quite matter to Vorian, really, because he was so beholden with her beauty that he pissed a brick. Granted, it was a small, teeny-tiny brick, but it was a brick none-the-less.

As the massive stone passed through his urethra, the space pirate Vorian could not help but think of that meddling kid Abulurd Harkonnen. What a pain in the ass. Then, with sudden clarity after having purged the Ultimate Kidney Stone, Vorian shouted for all to hear: “She will be mine. You cannot have her, you most traitorous and cowardly fiend! Arrr.”

Suddenly, the monstrous, supernatural beauty woke up and stared lovingly into the eyes of the space pirate she had been hungry for. “Vorian,” she said with a mousy innocence that belied the fact that she had already bore a horde of Venports, “I’m ready to make thunderous love to you. Are you ready to sex me up?”

Vorian did not need to be asked twice.

The cowardice of one man is a tragedy. The death of millions is a statistic embraced by the villainous villain Vorian Atreides. His innards best be boiled, else my plans for him be foiled. The Atreides is dead. Long live the Atreides! Ah, sweet Jessica Nerus, make sure to pick me up some of their delicious pondi rice! Man that rice is the bomb, yo.
—From the film “Corrino” (based on the novel “Butler”) by Abulurd Harkonnen

Ever since Vorian Atreides was mean to him during and after the Battle of Corrin, Abulurd Harkonnen swore to despise the Atreides name. In theory, this would be easy considering the embarrassment forced upon him by that overzealous, self-proclaimed space pirate. However, Abby Hark was in love with that fuzz-ball Atreides. No, he wasn’t gay. Sheesh, guys, get your minds out of the gutter. He just really liked staring at Vor’s chiseled chin and fantasizing about his finely-toned, well-oiled muscles and how they almost sparkle in the moonlight. No, really, Abby Hark wasn’t interested in Vor in that way. It was more of a bromance. He’s nothing at all like that robot-tranny Erasmus. Honest injun!

“I’ve got it! I must become a parody of myself. The only way to convince my heirs to actively despise my lovely, lovely Black Hawk is to become bombastic and so over the top in my speech and mannerisms. I shall become the new definition of cool and that beautiful Vor-bear will be made to look the fool!” Abby Hark smiled devilishly (or is that sexily?) at his transcriber-of-silly-notes.

“Jessica Nerus! I know just how to destroy the Vorinator. It is time to summon cognitors!”

OK, you got me. Abby Hark also liked to be called Baron Overbite, King of the Dwarves. The name made him feel special and wanted.

The means are just the beginnings to an end.
—“I Am a Space Pirate, And so Can You!” by Vorian Atreides

Estes and Kagin Tergiet hated their father Vorian Atreides. But they loved a good mystery and so they had stowed away on their father’s ship Dream Catcher II: Titan Catcher in order to discover whatever nefarious plot Vorian was hatching. At first they suspected that he was a Master P.I.M.P. but that soon proved incorrect as it seemed that Vorian was continuing his whoring ways.

He was raking in the dough, though! Every now and then he’d stop at a Space Brothel, have Space Sex with fifty fat chicks and charge them 100 Space Bucks each. However, Vorian was always too quick for them; Estes and Kagin never had enough time to snap a photograph of Vor with his women. The two boys were intent on exposing and discrediting their father in the eyes of the recently formed Landsraad.

They knew that their luck would change once they arrived at Venport Industries.

“Kagin, are you ready to solve the mystery of the Infamous Snore-Vor?” Estes voice was quite whiny. He never seemed to have finished going through puberty.

“You know it, bro! Go team Tergiet!” No one, not even the deceased Lady Tergiet enjoyed listening to Kagin’s husky voice.

And so the two Tergiet Boys snuck around Venport Industries. It did not take them long to find Vorian and his mistress Norma. However, this was one time they wished that Vorian’s sexing would be over quickly. Instead, they witnessed something truly inhuman.

Vorian was lying underneath a blue-skinned tentacle woman whose eyes flashed with a cooling wildness that gave the two boys goose bumps. Her prickly-shaped breasts heaved laboriously during his thunderous thrusts, sending electricity down her stringy salt-and-pepper hair. To the boys, this seemed to go on for hours. It wasn’t that long, but the contorting of their faces was enough to make the boys nauseated. They were paralyzed and could not help but watch the repeated thrusting. Eventually, the Tergiet Boys saw the scaly woman’s “O” face.

“Go team Atreides,” whispered Kagin softly to his brother.

Words could not properly and accurately describe her face, nor the expressions of the two boys. All that I can say is that Estes and Kagin dropped dead right then and there. Out of respect for their mother, Vorian buried them under the Atreides name, a name which they had sworn never to accept in life. See, Vorian is a villainous villain!

Epilogue

From the bliss she experienced with Vorian, Norma Cenva gave birth to twins: Kyle and Iowa. Vorian raised Kyle as his daughter and heir to the newly established House Atreides. Iowa was adopted by the Idaho clan of Giedi Prime.

Unbeknownst to Vorian, the descendants of Kyle Atreides and Iowa Idaho would produce the Kwisatz Haderach and the Ultimate Kwisatz Haderach. Normacle help us all!