Frank Herbert: The Works

BIBLIOGRAPHY.

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BIBLIOGRAPHY.

Note: Only a single edition of each text was referenced to write this book, and those unique texts are cited here. Page numbers may vary between different editions. Since the total number of pages of novels are provided here, approximate pages numbers for citations are easily calculated by a simple conversion factor. E.g., if an edition of God Emperor of Dune is said to have 454 pages, but the reader's copy of God Emperor of Dune has 404 pages, then by multiplying the page number of a citation on p. 365 of the first issue by 0.89 (i.e., 404 ¸ 454 = 0.89), you can anticipate finding the same citation on approximately 365 x 0.89 = p. 325 in the second issue, plus or minus a page or two.

02. Ellison, Harlan, Editor. Medea: Harlan's World. Proceedings of one session of a seminar on science fiction writing held 15 April 1975 in conjunction with the Department of Humanities and Communications, the Department of the Arts, UCLA Extension, and the stories written as a follow-up. New York, NY: Bantam Books. 532 pp. Copyright © 1985 by The Kilimanjaro Corporation.

03. Feehan, Ellen. "Frank Herbert and the Making of Myths: Irish History, Celtic Mythology, and IRA Ideology in The White Plague." Science Fiction Studies 19(58). (http://www.depauw.edu/sfs/backissues/58/feehan58art.htm) November 1992.

06. Herbert, Frank. The Book of Frank Herbert. New York, NY: Daw Books, Inc. 189 pp. Copyright © 1973 by Frank Herbert. Individual stories copyright © 1954, 1955, 1970 by The Condé Nast Publications, Inc.; 1952 by Startling Stories; 1954, 1955 by Ultimate Publishing Co.; 1956 by Fantastic Universe.

10. Herbert, Frank. Destination: Void (revised author's edition). New York, NY: Berkley Medallion Books. 276 pp. Copyright © 1966, 1978 by Frank Herbert. A different version of this novel appeared in Galaxy under the title "Do I Sleep or Wake," copyright © 1965 by Galaxy Publishing Corp.

11. Herbert, Frank. Direct Descent. New York, NY: Ace Books. 186 pp. Copyright 1980 by Frank Herbert; illustrations copyright © 1980 by Garcia; a portion of this book appeared as "Pack Rat Planet" in the December 1954 issue of Astounding Science Fiction copyright © 1954 by Smith & Street Publications, Inc.

14. Herbert, Frank. Dune Messiah. New York, NY: Berkley Medallion Books. 256 pp. Copyright © 1969 by Frank Herbert. A shorter version appeared in Galaxy Magazine for July - September 1969, copyright © 1969 by Galaxy Publishing Corporation.

15. Herbert, Frank. Eye. New York, NY: Berkley Books. 328 pp. Copyright © 1985 by Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc; all stories copyright © 1985 by Frank Herbert; all illustrations copyright © 1985 by Byron Preiss Visual Publications, Inc.; individual stories copyright © 1973, 1985 by Frank Herbert, copyright © 1955, 1956, 1958, 1966, 1970 by Condé Nast Publications, Inc., copyright © 1958 by Fantastic Universe, copyright © 1961 by UPD Publishing Company, copyright © 1964 by World Editions, Inc., copyright © 1970, 1973 by Mercury Press.

16. Herbert, Frank. The Eyes of Heisenberg. New York, NY: Berkley Medallion Books. 158 pp. Copyright © 1966 by Frank Herbert. A shorter version of this novel was published in Galaxy Magazine as "Heisenberg's Eyes" copyright © 1966 by Galaxy Publishing Corp.

17. Herbert, Frank. "Feathered Pigs." In: Destinies 1(5):180-3. October-December 1979. New York: Ace Books. James Baen, Editor.

20. Herbert, Frank. The Green Brain. New York, NY: Berkeley Books. 215 pp. Copyright © 1966 by Frank Herbert. Part of this novel as appeared in Amazing Stories as a novelette entitled Greenslaves and is copyright © 1965 by Ziff-Davis Publications, Inc.

21. Herbert, Frank. The Heaven Makers. New York, NY: Avon Books. 159 pp. Copyright © 1968 by Frank Herbert. First published in two parts by Amazing Fantastic Magazine. A somewhat different version of this novel was serialized in the April and June 1967 issues of Amazing Stories copyright © 1967 by Ultimate Publishing Co.

22. Herbert, Frank. Hellstrom's Hive. New York, NY: Nelson Doubleday, Inc., published by arrangement with Bantam Books, Inc.. 278 pp. Copyright © 1972, 1973 by Bantam Books, Inc. Originally published under the title "Project 40" in Galaxy Magazine.

24. Herbert, Frank. The Maker of Dune: Insights of a Master of Science Fiction. Tim O'Reilly, Editor. New York, NY: Berkley Books. 279 pp. Copyright © 1987 by the estate of Frank Herbert and Tim O'Reilly.

25. Herbert, Frank. "The Mind Bomb." In: Worlds of If, October 1969. pp. 4-159.

26. Herbert, Frank. "Mindfield!" In: Amazing Stories, March 1962. pp. 10-47.

28. Herbert, Frank. The Santaroga Barrier. New York, NY: Berkley Medallion Books. 255 pp. Copyright © 1968 by Frank Herbert. First published in a shorter version in Amazing Stories magazine, copyright © 1967 by Ultimate Publishing Co.

29. Herbert, Frank. "Science Fiction and You." Introduction to: Tomorrow and Tomorrow and Tomorrow, Herbert Heitz and Joor McGee, Editors. New York: Holt, Rinehart and Winston. pp. 1-8. 1973.

33. Herbert, Frank. Whipping Star. New York, NY: Berkley Medallion Books. 188 pp. Copyright © 1969, 1970, 1977 by Frank Herbert; a shorter version of this book appeared in Worlds of If Science Fiction for December 1969 - March 1970, copyright © 1969, 1970 by Galaxy Publishing Corporation.

35. Herbert, Frank. The Worlds of Frank Herbert. New York, NY: Berkley Medallion Books. 247 pp. Copyright © 1971 by Frank Herbert. Individual stories copyright © 1958, 1961, 1964, 1965 by Galaxy Publishing Corp.; 1965, 1966, 1967 by The Condé Nast Publications, Inc.

37. Herbert, Frank and F.M. Busby. "Come to the Party." In: The 1979 Annual World's Best SF, Donald A. Wollheim with Arthur W. Saha, Editors. New York, NY: Daw Books, Inc. Copyright © 1979 by Donald A. Wollheim. "Come to the Party" copyright © 1978, Condé Nast Publications, Inc. pp. 11-36.

39. Herbert, Frank, Brian Herbert, and Kevin J. Anderson. The Road to Dune. Patrick LoBrutto, Editor. New York, NY: Tom Doherty Associates, LLC (A Tor Book). 400 pp. Copyright © 2005 by Herbert Properties, LLC.

43. Hewitt, Tim. Is There Life After Dune? Cinefantastique 16(4):4-5, 16. October 1986. (http://www.davidlynch.de/cinevelvet.html)

44. MacKenzie, Peter Sean. Interview with Frank Herbert (http://members.lycos.co.uk/Fenrir/ctdinterviews.htm). 16 January 1977.

45. McIntyre, Vonda N. "The Frank Herbert Memorial Sunset Watch." Infinity Plus. (http://www.infinityplus.co.uk/nonfiction/frankh.htm) 1997.

46. McNelly, Willis E. Interview with Frank and Beverly Herbert, primarily concerning Dune and Dune Messiah (http://www.sinanvural.com/seksek/inien/tvd/tvd2.htm). 3 February 1969.

48. McNelly, Willis E. "Frank Herbert: 1920 - 1986." Bulletin of the Science Fiction Writers of America (http://www.geocities.com/area51/hollow/6363/eulogy.htm). A tribute to Frank Herbert. 1986.

49. McNelly, Willis E. Letter to SciFi Channel Dune on-line bulletin board about his pitch for a Butlerian Jihad novel (http://bboard.scifi.com/bboard/browse.php/1/5/1607/2900?). 19 February 2001.

50. Meyers, Walter Earl. Aliens and Linguistics: Language Study and Science Fiction. South Atlantic Modern Language Association award study. University of Georgia Press. Discussion about Dune Messiah, p. 6. 1980.

51. O'Reilly, Timothy. Recognitions: Frank Herbert. New York, NY: Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., Inc. 216 pp. Copyright © 1981 by Frederick Ungar Publishing Co., Inc. Text available on line in its entirety (http://tim.oreilly.com/herbert/).

52. 080 O3.05. Pavlovic, Dwight S. Interview with Brian Herbert (http://www.dunenovels.com/news/BrianHerbertInterview.pdf). 2003.

53. Riddle, Patricia. "Frank Herbert: The Legend Maker of Dune." Prevue 57 (http://www.prevuemagazine.com/Articles/Thevault/12). 1984.

54. Stone, Pat. Interview with Frank Herbert for Mother Earth News 69 (http://www.motherearthnews.com/arc/6433/). May/June 1981.

55. 088 U31. Touponce, William F. Frank Herbert. Twayne's United States authors series. Boston, Massachusetts: Twayne Publishers, a Division of G.K. Hall & Co. 136 pp. Copyright © 1988 by G. K. Hall & Co.

56. 089 V3. Turner, Paul. Interview with Frank Herbert for Vertex Magazine 1(4) (http://members.lycos.co.uk/Fenrir/ctdinterviews.htm). Concerned with the Dune series, the writing life, and general philosophy. October 1973.

14.02 The Death of Frank Herbert.

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14.02 The Death of Frank Herbert.

FRANK HERBERT DIED too soon.

One chill January morning in 1986 I was at the University of Arizona in Tucson. My writing class had just ended, and I was on my way to the Flandrau Science Center and Planetarium because a space shuttle was scheduled for launch that morning. The planetarium would be making a big production of it with a live video feed direct from NASA.

When I arrived the place was strangely quiet, positively spooky, in spite of all the space-obsessed, nerdy schmucks skulking about. The giant broadcast screen showed only an empty, marshy landscape and occasional bird-flecked skies over Cape Kennedy. All was silent.

I'd just missed the explosion on live TV of the space shuttle Challenger.

Few contemporary fans of Frank Herbert have any of their own memories of Project Apollo, but I remember one day in 1972 when my 5th grade teacher brought a television set into the classroom and pointed it out the window. During recess I was one of the few kids peering over the bushes and through the glass as Apollo 16 or 17 (I don’t know which one) splashed down in real time and real silence, except for distant playground laughter and creaks of swing chains. I had watched other Apollo missions on TV as well, but this memory remains clear more than 35 years later.

I am a son of the Space Age, and that carries an excitement that younger science fiction aficionados -- many of whom have no clear memory of even the Challenger disaster -- can never appreciate.

On 4 December 1985 Frank Herbert had been diagnosed with metastatic pancreatic adenocarcinoma. His prognosis was poor.

Herbert learned of an experimental hyperthermic regimen being tested in Madison, Wisconsin. A few days later, Frank and Theresa Herbert departed for Wisconsin and Herbert's first treatment there, with monthly follow-ups scheduled to last through May.

Herbert underwent surgery on 24 January, at which time doctors discovered his cancer was more extensive than had been suspected. Four days later the space shuttle Challenger was destroyed 73 seconds into its flight.

On 7 February Herbert was in his hospital room in Wisconsin working on a short story about his bizarre dream experiences under anesthesia. It was two years since the death of Beverly Herbert. Four days later, at about 11:30 a.m., Frank Herbert died unexpectedly from a pulmonary embolism.

The following morning, 12 February, I heard on the radio that Frank Herbert had died. I had just learned a week and a half earlier that my own father had less than a year to live, and I could not really deal with this news on a very deep level. What I wrote in my journal was this:

I have just learned that Frank Herbert died yesterday. I will write more on this later. . . .I deeply regret I'll never get the chance to meet him.

Frank Herbert: The Works is me "writing more on this later." It's a kind of debt I'm paying.

Frank Patrick Herbert, Jr. was an important, formative influence on my life, although I only knew him through his fiction. With the publication of Dune, he pounded the last nail into the coffin of the Golden Age of science fiction. As a writer he was always more interested in the human condition than the technological tinkering of humans, which for so long had been central to the genre.

Star Wars made science fiction socially acceptable and simultaneously emasculated much of its wild energy promise. To no small degree the fantastic futures imagined by our most daring science fiction writers of 20, 30, and 40 years ago have either now come true or, as in the promise of space exploration we lived through in the 1960s, have been expunged from our collective mythology by failures to follow through. Much modern science fiction is either a form of retread of where we've been before or, more commonly, represents a sort of "soap operafication" of the genre: petty human melodramas played out against a hanging, two-dimensional background of pinwheel galaxies.

This is not necessarily for good or ill. Infinity, as Herbert showed us, is a long time. The wheel has turned. It will continue turning.

We live in a time when the ostrich syndrome is universal. Our controlling, conditioning societies have been improbably effective at stamping down the promise of open minds and unrestrained creativity. Few human beings these days actively seek enlightenment or hyperconsciousness. They prefer to live in their bellies, to seek personal comfort and a paycheck and security in a perfect retirement package.

It's all fables, of course. Always has been. It's bait dangled on a string before us to appease the desires of a voracious social hierarchy.

In 1997, Vonda N. McIntyre wrote a moving and eloquent tribute to Frank Herbert's memory in Infinity Plus. She describes a dinner once shared by Herbert and herself, as well as by David Hartwell, in Seattle, where they sat "at the window table for a couple of hours, talking and laughing and gossiping and drinking wine and watching the amazing sunset of orange and purple and red and fluorescent yellow" [45]. Some time after Herbert's death, Hartwell and McIntyre got together again to drink wine and watch the sunset and toast their departed companion.

Perhaps anyone who loved the man and his fiction can incorporate some variation of the Frank Herbert Memorial Sunset Watch in his own life. It seems a fitting ritual to honor our fortune at having had our lives enriched by his works.

Le Roi est mort. Vive le Roi!

__________

¹ The Dune novels were always an exploration of a monosentiency. There would be no necessity for Herbert to account for who introduced the sandworm ecology to Dune provided that the greater aspects of the myth-structure are addressed.

² The etymology of "Futar" might be revealing.

³ This approach eliminates any need for Frank Herbert to revisit the Butlerian Jihad.

14.01 Dune 7.

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14.01 Dune 7.

IT'S A SAD truth, but truth nonetheless, that no one will ever know how Frank Herbert would have written Dune 7.

Many fans are content to accept Chapterhouse: Dune as the saga's final installment. Others look for closure -- and further expansion -- in the Dune novels by Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson. Some reject these latter novels as being "non-canonical," while many seek their own form of closure by making up their own Dune stories, few of which are ever written down.

Frank Herbert always appreciated this last group; in fact, he intentionally left loose ends dangling from his novels to encourage the reader to complete the stories on his own. Herbert was deeply suspicious of the movement of science fiction towards academia, and I suspect he would have scoffed at debates over the Dune "canon."

Some of the parameters delimiting Dune 7 have been established fairly categorically. For example, in February 1985 Herbert told son Brian that he expected to write the novel after a few other projects that year and before leaving for Nepal in the spring of 1986 [04; 480] (see §12.07). This suggests that Herbert probably anticipated writing the novel over a 6-9 month period. We can assume that he already had a good idea of what the storyline would entail, and that he had planted material in Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune (the latter he finished writing a year earlier) which would be important to Dune 7. Importantly, Herbert saw no need to revisit the Butlerian Jihad to develop background for Dune 7.

Not that he hadn't been given the opportunity to do so.

On 19 February 2001, an interesting letter from Willis E. McNelly was posted on-line at the SciFi Channel's Dune chat forum. In it McNelly said:

In the light of recent talk about prequels to Dune based on the Butlerian Jihad, Dune fans might be interested in knowing that this concept of writing a novel or novels about the BJ is not new. Rather, it is an idea I originated about a year before FH's death. I conceived of a prequel called "Prologue to Dune: the Butlerian Jihad." Its basic structure and plot outline would be the extensive material on the BJ contained in the Dune Encyclopedia. I discussed the idea with Frank on the phone at some length -- and suggested that he and I might collaborate on the novel. He thought it was a good idea and also suggested that I draft a general outline and send it to him. After all, collaboration was something that he had done before.

I then proceeded to develop an extensive outline, including a rich panoply of characters, some quite unusual methods of handling the narrative, plot twists and so on. I wrote a suggested first chapter, about 2000 words long and then mailed all this material to him, but his tragic final illness kept him from answering.

[49]

This leads immediately to Herbert's opinions of both The Dune Encyclopedia and of McNelly himself -- unanswerable questions, but authors are usually passionately protective of their literary progeny, and perhaps McNelly reveals more of Herbert's attitudes about the project than he realizes.

McNelly continues with events that transpired more than a year after Herbert's death:

I sent all of the material to Brian Herbert, with whom I was on professional terms although we had never met. Because he had once praised The Dune Encyclopedia in a personal letter to me written in the fall of 1990, calling it a "masterpiece," I suggested that he and I collaborate on my proposed prequel about the Butlerian Jihad to be derived from that work. Unfortunately he also did not reply.

[49]

In Dreamer of Dune Brian Herbert makes no direct mention of this. But Brian does corroborate McNelly's interest in a Butlerian Jihad story in a 2003 interview:

Some have suggested that Dr. McNelly and your father, Frank Herbert, were in fact planning [to] write a Dune novel entitled "The Butlerian Jihad" but could only finish two chapters of it. It has also been suggested that these chapters were given to you. Did you perhaps base any events in Butlerian Jihad on these two chapters? If not, do you ever plan to make these two lost sections available to the public?

Brian: That rumor is not correct. Dr. McNelly and Frank Herbert did not work on a new "Butlerian Jihad" novel, and they certainly didn't write two chapters together. Dr. McNelly did express a desire [to] write his own Butlerian Jihad novel, but we never authorized him to proceed with the project.

[52]

Regardless, the Dune saga is predicated on the Butlerian Jihad, and especially if Dune 7 was to have been the conclusion to the series and not "just" another episode, then standing the Butlerian Jihad on its head makes a great deal of sense in relation to the greater mythological structure that Herbert had built; after all, the Butlerian Jihad and its viciously-guarded and psychologically embedded tenets have effectively straight-jacketed humanity for millennia.

It is easy to imagine that Dune 7 would have followed two groups of characters: the fusion of the Honored Matres and Reverend Mothers on Chapterhouse, and Duncan Idaho and his companions in their own universe.

The hybridization process on Chapterhouse would probably yield a new Sisterhood essentially Bene Gesserit with Honored Matre information about the Scattering and the Ones With Many Faces. The Sisterhood possesses naturally-occurring melange and axlotl tank technology, and the Scytale ghola they've grown could provide the requisite knowledge for producing synthetic melange.

From the Lampadas horde it would not be too surprising if the Sisterhood discovered that Burzmali, like Lucilla, had escaped that holocaust. Burzmali might return to lead the Sisterhood in the war against the Ones of Many Faces.

The plant from God Emperor of Dune about the "Star Jewel project" (see footnote 12 from Chapter 11) might prove instrumental in Dune 7, although in what capacity is unpredictable given the paucity of clues Herbert provided. But that plant was probably too blatant for it to be ignored in this novel. Might "Star Jewels" provide direct access to Duncan Idaho's Universe Wide Web (see §13.02.07) into which Other Memory provides a limited vision?

Two major discoveries by the new Sisterhood would be stunning.

Investigation into synthetic spice production could break open the biological relationship of sandworm to human. Someone or something introduced the sandworm ecosystem to Dune. Melange just happens to be biologically active in the human brain. Sandtrout just happen to be biologically capable of fusing with the cells of (certain) human beings. Crucially, melange is produced by the human body. It is unimaginable that Dune 7 would have turned into an extraterrestrial novel¹, but the essential question demanding an answer is: why was a sandworm ecosystem imported to Dune?

Possibly: both Terran and sandworm ecosystems are derived from a single genetic stock, and both were introduced into the Milky Way galaxy simultaneously (we are the aliens, as in "Occupation Force"). The two ecosystems were isolated in distant stellar systems so that humanity could not discover melange until it had developed an advanced form of space travel (synthetic consciousness). The reunion of human and worm is a natural and expected biological evolutionary event.

Ixian no-technology would comprise the second major avenue of investigation by the Sisterhood. Verification that synthetic consciousness lies at the heart of all no-ships would be high drama, and it would be vital intelligence for the war with the Ones of Many Faces.

Several problems out of the Honored Matre past might prove of minor relevance. Futars² and their Handlers might fall into this category, as would the posited amphibious soostone divers of Buzzel. How do disruptors ("The Weapon") work? Even the biologicals deployed against the Honored Matres are probably of secondary importance if Bene Gesserit physiological control is proof against them.

The fates of Duncan Idaho and his merry troop would be more action-packed.

That nullentropy vial in Scytale's chest would be addressed quickly. These ancient characters are of minor importance for who they were, but they play a critical role aboard the no-ship. Duncan and cohorts have cut themselves off in their own universe and require a sizeable human gene pool if they don't wish to inbreed to extinction. Voilà, enter Scytale's horde stage right. Probably its discovery would follow a confrontation between Scytale and the Jews, hopefully ending in his death (the final fate of terminal conservatism). Construction of hundreds of axlotl tanks would follow. Then everyone becomes babysitters -- something like the scenario from "By the Book." Some, all, or none of the resulting gholas could have original memories restored: these Scatterlings might not even know the identities of the cells they are recalling to life.

Would Sheeana go the Leto route and don the skin of the worm? Would others do the same? Something of this magnitude is indicated for purposes of the myth structure Herbert has built into his saga. If human and worm have a shared genetic heritage, then the fusion of the two into a single race is the obvious apotheosis, and could very well provide the mechanism for ultimate human/worm victory in the war against the Ones of Many Faces.

(To spare us the less interesting developmental phases -- e.g., Bene Gesserit and Honored Matre bickering, years of child-rearing in the new universe, etc. -- Dune 7 might begin a hundred years or more after Chapterhouse: Dune ends.)

But probably the most pressing and most controversial mystery is that of the Ones of Many Faces themselves, and Ixian killing machines.

Marty and Daniel are avatars of Perfect Face Dancers who have assimilated so many personas that, like Leto II, they are godlike. The departure of the great no-ship from Chapterhouse and its escape from Daniel's net indicates that many (most?) who would Scatter have been diverted, not maliciously, but for reasons unknown. The Honored Matres believed the Handlers were synonymous with the Ones of Many Faces (see §13.02.06), so Marty and Daniel probably are the Ones of Many Faces, or are at least two of them.

In neither Heretics of Dune nor Chapterhouse: Dune does Herbert suggest that Ixian killing machines are pursuing the Honored Matres.

Nevertheless, plants in Children of Dune and God Emperor of Dune suggest strongly that the killing machines would have been important to Dune 7. Furthermore, they fit in importantly with the concept of synthetic consciousness driving no-technology, all of which Frank Herbert could have made to work brilliantly. These killing machines are not artificial intelligence writ large. This is probably a perversion of Ixian technology out of the Scattering: synthetic rogue consciousness out to purge creation of problematic life forms³.

(In fact, this could very well be the reason Marty and Daniel are shunting Scatterlings to safe planets: to try to protect them from the killing machines.)

All of which comes together in Dune 7. Sheeana and her descendants, presumably merged with Shai-hulud, save the day. Probably Duncan's universe is never rejoined with the original Dune universe; indeed, if they could find their way back to the Old Imperium, the point of the Golden Path would be negated.

With both groups eternally sundered, Herbert has finally broken the cycle of the Absolute/Infinity Breach.

CHAPTER 14. AMERICAN TREASURE.

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ACT III. AN AMERICAN TREASURE.

CHAPTER 14. AMERICAN TREASURE.

14.01 Dune 7.

14.02 The Death of Frank Herbert.

13.03 Critical Mass.

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13.03 Critical Mass.

ABOVE AND BEYOND the dazzling complexities of Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune is the mere fact that Frank Herbert was able to write them at all.

He was in the midst of the upheavals surrounding his wife's final years of life, and he was also immersed in the production of David Lynch's Dune. And the speed with which these pages were flying out of his personal computer is mind-boggling.

Of course he knew a lot of what he wanted to say, but it's clear especially in Heretics of Dune that when he first sat down to begin this project Herbert didn't yet have all the facts straight in his own head. He simply began writing, secure in the faith that issues of character motivation and continuity could be -- would be -- worked out as he went along.

Some of those continuity issues remain in Heretics of Dune, but overall Herbert's faith in the writing process was rewarded.

The inspiration came from projects like Looking for America, from his earlier thoughts about adrenalin addicts and human-machine convergence, from the reproductive stumps of Hellstrom's Hive and the synthetic consciousness of Ship in Destination: Void, certainly from a discovery of the bizarre implications of quantum mechanics, and probably from the David Lynch production, especially with respect to the problem of interstellar travel and Foldspace.

If no-ships truly are synthetic consciousness entities, then much of the story would have dropped into place of its own volition.

All of this points strongly in the direction he probably intended to go with Dune 7.

__________

¹ The chronology of the writing of Heretics of Dune is ambiguous. Brian Herbert, speaking of events that happened "around [the] time" of early January 1983, says: "Dad told me he was ninety pages into the first draft of Heretics of Dune. . . ." [04; 384-5]. But then a few pages later Brian says that in mid-February Frank Herbert

. . . .said he was on page 366 of Heretics of Dune out of a projected five hundred. This was only forty-six pages better than a month earlier, and he said he had run into plot problems, slowing him down. . . .

[04; 387]

It seems probable that Herbert started writing the novel in late 1982, probably in or before November. In any case, Brian reports that Beverly was reading the "just completed" novel on 3 June 1983 [04; 397].

² Not that Heretics of Dune reveals much about the inner workings of the Bene Gesserit circa the Muad'Dib era. 5000 years have passed since then. This ain't your great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-great-grandmother's Bene Gesserit!

³ In Patricia Riddle's 1984 Prevue article, Herbert clarifies his reasons for the settings of the later Dune novels:

"I wanted to explore the type of civilization that would evolve if there was one incredibly powerful ruler for 3500 years," Herbert explains. "So I wrote God Emperor -- and killed him off in the same book. Heretics of Dune takes place about 1500 years later. To see evolution in progress, it's necessary to deal with vast spaces of time."

[53]

While Herbert's reasoning provides insight into the unusually vast time span of this series, little or no evidence of natural selection would be evident after so short a time span as 5000 years.

⁴ This statistical claim is couched in terminology that is not interpretable.

⁵ For all the talk in this novel about Sheeana's ability to "control the worms," her interaction with them is limited to only a very few incidents. The worms decline to ingest her, but she displays no ability to "control" them; on the contrary, on three occasions the worms transport her to distant locations of their own choosing, not hers. Is there anything at all unique about Sheeana, or did the worms choose her without any real cause intrinsic to her, genetic or otherwise?

The doubt is amplified at the end of Chapterhouse: Dune:

. . . .Bellonda sank into her chairdog with familiar confidence. "Tam's gone but I could send for Sheeana."

"Where is she?"

"At the ship. Studying a collection of worms in the Great Hold, says any of us can be taught to control them."

[08; 488]

This seems to obviate any lingering belief that any unique relationship exists between Sheeana and sandworms.

⁶ Lucilla's assigned task in this novel is to sexually imprint Duncan Idaho. Although the precise intent of this imprinting is never specified, Duncan would presumably become more pliable to the wishes of Odrade (whom Lucilla closely resembles physically), binding his loyalty to the Sisterhood, and ultimately Duncan and Sheeana will be sexually paired. Of course, despite not being imprinted to Lucilla, Duncan eventually provides a wealth of insight and information to Odrade, and in Dune 7 almost certainly would have become sexually paired with Sheeana. . . .

⁷ The Tleilaxu killed the first eleven Duncan Idaho gholas they sold to the Bene Gesserit. This remarkable number of deaths without appropriately suitable response from the Bene Gesserit recalls the 20 subtugs lost to the enemy prior to the story of Under Pressure, 18,036 clones lost in space prior to the story of Destination: Void, four failed missions to investigate Fraffin's world prior to the story of The Heaven Makers, and eight or nine failed missions preceding Dasein's attempt prior to the story of The Santaroga Barrier.

⁸ Unless Ixian Navigation Machines can be adapted to this broader purpose, but this is never suggested.

⁹ The inexperience of Honored Matres with either Other Memory or prescience suggests strongly that they will prove inferior to the Bene Gesserit, since the Dune series is predicated on extensions to usual consciousness. In fact, given their predilection for acting without careful thinking, the Honored Matres can safely be considered to be hypoconscious.

¹⁰ Tleilaxu Master Waff holds another opinion about the origins of Honored Matres:

. . . .He could glimpse the probable history of these Honored Matres. One of the natural Reverend Mothers from the Fremen of Rakis had gone out in the Scattering. Diverse people had fled on the no-ships during and immediately after the Famine Times. A no-ship had seeded the wild witch and her concepts somewhere. That seed had returned in the form of this orange-eyed huntress.

[23; 85]

¹¹ The Bene Tleilaxu also misapprehend the goals of the Honored Matres with respect to melange, as Waff considers: ". . . .Rakis was the prize the Scattered Ones really sought and it might yet be demanded of the Tleilaxu" [23; 419-20].

¹² The distinction between Master and Face Dancer is much clearer in Heretics of Dune than in previous novels in the series, and the biological implausibility of the Face Dancers at least becomes somewhat more comprehensible. The Tleilaxu Masters have genetically engineered the Face Dancers as precision tools for prying into powindah cultures. Probably there are relatively few tailored Face Dancer models, and all Face Dancers are clones of these prototypes. More like mindless doppelgangers than the tremendously autonomous character of Scytale in Dune Messiah suggests, they have minimal minds of their own so the Masters can direct their activities absolutely. The Tleilaxu Masters would deliberately desire their Face Dancers to be sterile so they could not escape their control, and also so the Bene Gesserit could not breed with them and so tap into their Other Memory and divine the secrets of the Tleilaxu culture.

When he is a child, Teg's mother tells him:

". . . .[Face Dancers] are mules, sterile. But their masters can breed. We have taken a few of them but the offspring are strange. Few female births and even then we cannot probe their Other Memories."

[23; 74]

This experience with Master offspring probably reflects protective Tleilaxu modifications to the genes conveyed by their sperm with this specific outcome in mind.

¹³ The Bene Gesserit guess this secret about the Bene Tleilaxu in an unfortunate and improbably miraculous insight:

. . . .the Tleilaxu are using their ghola system as a kind of immortality.

Taraza could be right. Reincarnated Tleilaxu Masters would not be like Reverend Mothers -- no Other Memories, only personal memories. But prolonged!

Fascinating!

[23; 250]

And another quantum leap in insight that would have been better received had it emerged from action in the story:

Taraza's communication burned in Odrade's awareness: "The Tleilaxu plan is transparent: Ascendancy. The human universe must be made into a Tleilaxu universe. They could not hope to achieve such a goal without help from the Scattering. Ergo."

[23; 250]

It is also interesting that the new Face Dancers acquire memories through physical contact -- the same method employed by Reverend Mothers in Sharing their Other Memory. . . .and very similar to the Vulcan mind meld in Star Trek. This head-to-head touching and memory acquisition seems improbably amateurish in the Dune series (i.e., there is no conceivable mechanism by which memories could be Shared simply by touching heads together). Ixian probes can also get at memories, presumably by drilling holes into the skull, as happens to Schwangyu on Gammu [23; 276]. Honored Matre T-Probes capture memories through a less invasive process that leaves no such cranial punctures and is seemingly more related to a mechanical reproduction of the head-to-head touching. Thus in Reverend Mothers and Face Dancers and mechanical devices Herbert describes a convergent evolution of techniques all striving to capture memories from another mind.

If Other Memory is a ghostly phenomenon approximating an exquisite addressing system for a holographic universe, and if all conscious people etch such Memory in real time into the substance of the physical universe, then a mechanical device that could tap into all that collective Memory would be awesome in the extreme -- although Herbert never (openly) pursues this possibility.

¹⁴ When Taraza instructed Odrade to write and distribute the manifesto, the Bene Gesserit had not yet identified the Tleilaxu religion. The effect this document would have on them could not have been anticipated. "The Atreides Manifesto" was probably written as a Missionaria Protectiva exercise whose primary goal was to help pave the way for eventual consolidation of religious faith around Sheeana. Odrade's later claim that the Sisterhood had hoped the Tleilaxu would disseminate the manifesto [23; 136] is unlikely. Despite the lofty heft of its title, "The Atreides Manifesto" proves to be essentially irrelevant to the novel (it is never mentioned in Chapterhouse: Dune), and is best considered as a plot device for drawing the Tleilaxu into the story.

¹⁵ Perhaps inordinate fear of a means to detect no-ships motivates the extremely violent attack by Honored Matres on Rakis. If the Tleilaxu knew of this fear they might have attempted to engineer such a talent into Duncan Idaho, whom they suspected the Bene Gesserit would deploy against the Honored Matres.

¹⁶ The ostensible primary purpose of the new Face Dancers:

. . . .The Tleilaxu obviously sought an undetectable Face Dancer, mimics whose mimicry reached perfection, shape-copiers who copied not only the surface memories of their victims but the deepest thoughts and identity as well. It was a form of immortality even more enticing than the one the Tleilaxu Masters used at present. That obviously was why they followed this course.

[23; 352]

¹⁷ Duncan Idaho remembers the tanks:

The axlotl tanks!

He remembered emerging time after time: bright lights and padded mechanical hands. The hands rotated him and, in the unfocused blurs of the newborn, he saw a great mound of female flesh -- monstrous in her almost immobile grossness. . . .a maze of dark tubes linked her body to giant metal containers.

Axlotl tank?

[23; 435]

The description revives that from Hellstrom's Hive (§8.07).

¹⁸ Why would Face Dancers attack Sheeana on Rakis? Since the Bene Tleilaxu saw Leto II as a Prophet, and Sheeana was (allegedly) able to communicate with the Divided God, her murder would defy Tleilaxu logic. Nevertheless, Taraza confirms the involvement of the Tleilaxu to Odrade:

. . . .The Reverend Mother responded, her fingers dancing with unleashed excitement: "Taraza's message -- The Tleilaxu are the pivotal element. Guild must be made to pay dearly for its melange. Shut down Rakian supply to them. . . .Master of Masters responds to us from Tleilaxu. He goes to Rakis. Trap him."

. . . .Face Dancers! Odrade thought about the bodies they had examined. The Tleilaxu had finally sent their Face Dancers into action. It was a test of the Bene Gesserit, of course. These new ones were extremely difficult to detect. They still gave off the characteristic smell of their unique pheromones, though. Odrade had sent that datum in her message to Chapter House.

[23; 161]

Do the Tleilaxu fear the combination of Sheeana and their modified Duncan Idaho ghola more than they fear risking a religious affront by killing Sheeana? This seems improbable. Do the Tleilaxu simply perceive Sheeana as a pathway for the Bene Gesserit to block their hegemony -- possibly through a new religion that would interfere with their own plans? And why do Guild and Ix risk everything in aiding the assassination scheme? No answers are forthcoming.

The attempt on Sheeana's life provides the Sisterhood with justification for restraining Waff. This course is probably pursued to try to wrangle the secret of the axlotl tanks from him after Rakis is negated as a source of melange.

But an alternative explanation is also possible. Perhaps the Bene Gesserit are mistaken, and these attacking Face Dancers are being directed not by the Bene Tleilaxu but by Honored Matres. The attack on Sheeana bears a certain resemblance to the attacks on the Keep on Gammu and later on the Harkonnen no-globe there. Although if this is the case, the Honored Matres risk forfeiting the element of surprise in advance of their later attack on Rakis.

¹⁹ There is some confusion here. No-ships conceal one from prescient seekers, but it does not necessarily follow that electromagnetic invisibility confers this prescient defense. Can an object be made invisible from ordinary ocular view but still remain visible to the prescient? Or are these attacking ships weaving in and out of Foldspace and so aren't truly "invisible" at all?

²⁰ The strategic intelligence possessed by Teg, Patrin (born on Gammu) and the Bene Gesserit is scandalously deficient:

"How long have [the Honored Matres] been on Gammu?"

"Too long, sir. Since I was a child and I was a baltern at Renditai."

A hundred years at least, Teg thought. Time to gather many forces into their hands. . . .

[23; 395-6]

How is it possible that Honored Matres and their foes from the Scattering have all been on Gammu for a hundred years and neither Teg nor the Bene Gesserit know much of anything about them? Acquisition of even the most basic intelligence should precede any thought of engaging the Honored Matres in battle.

²¹ The Bene Tleilaxu Master Scytale appearing briefly in Heretics of Dune, and much more prominently in Chapterhouse: Dune, is a subject of controversy. What is his relationship to the Face Dancer of the same name in Dune Messiah? It is evident that Face Dancers and their Masters have evolved considerably since Dune Messiah, but the problem remains. If this is the same character, why is the connection never made categorically? After all, Scytale was a willing co-conspirator who met with the Bene Gesserit (Mohiam and Irulan) in Dune Messiah, so the Bene Gesserit should have recognized the name, and possibly the face, from Other Memory. . . .unless "Scytale" just happens to be a common Tleilaxu name and the intervening years meant they failed to make the connection. . . .Unlikely.

Most tellingly is the passage: "Mirlat himself had seen the Prophet with his own eyes. Scytale had spoken to Muad'dib!" [23; 57]. So how many representatives from the Tleilaxu named Scytale spoke to Muad'Dib? The probable answer is one. . . .and this is the same character in both novels.

Scytale was the cleverest character in Dune Messiah, and in retrospect that character seems intellectually superior by far to the colony-minded Face Dancers of the later novels. One possibility is that Scytale began life as a Face Dancer who somehow was "promoted" to the status of Bene Tleilaxu Master, presumably through genetic surgery and repetitive incarnations as gholas. Conceivably this could have been a reward for proving the concept of awakening original memories in gholas. But this would fail to account for his uncommon acumen demonstrated in Dune Messiah.

Another intriguing possibility is that Scytale began as a Tleilaxu Master who more-or-less independently devised the scheme enacted in Dune Messiah. Bijaz may or may not have been a Master, but perhaps the Master Scytale had himself re-engineered into Face Dancer form to enact the plot and prove the method. Afterwards, he might have been restored to his former status as Tleilaxu Master.

²² One man's ruin is another man's glory. Herbert gave such turnabouts in perspective the light touch a few times before: enemy invaders became familiar compatriots in 1955's "Occupation Force," and the psychological pull that returned space explorers to Earth was revealed to be a push in 1966's "Escape Felicity."

²³ Earlier, passing mention was made of a Tleilaxu envoy named Wose sent to the Rakis Priesthood [23; 213].

²⁴ Leto may have concealed this back-up hoard so the Bene Gesserit could "kick-start" the spice cycle on another world -- provided they transported it all to Chapter House Planet. Odrade and Duncan Idaho refer to the matter briefly in Chapterhouse: Dune:

Excitement gripped him. "Sandtrout, you said. But are there any new worms?"

"Sheeana expects them soon."

"They require a large amount of spice as catalyst."

"We've gambled a great deal of melange out there. Leto told you about the catalyst, didn't he? . . ."

[08; 90]

²⁵ It is a hallmark of the Dune saga that Herbert has always sketched in the most dramatic scenes with only minimal strokes in order to concentrate on the interior drama. The major exception to this is Leto's fateful plunge in God Emperor of Dune, which dramatically amplifies the impact of that particular scene.

²⁶ Recall that in his childhood the Bene Gesserit tested Teg for signs of both prescience and (curiously) the ability to detect no-ships [23; 76]. Neither talent was detected.

²⁷ In Chapterhouse: Dune [08; 184], Duncan Idaho reflects on the danger of police or armies being unable to psychologically separate themselves adequately from their adversaries; we witness here Teg's psychological mechanism for performing the necessary act of violence.

²⁸ Of course he did successfully sidestep the problem in Whipping Star and The Dosadi Experiment with Calebans and jumpdoors.

²⁹ The descriptive model of spacetime, energy and matter constructed here is an attempt to describe this Herbert space, and should not be misconstrued to be applicable to the physical universe that we inhabit.

³⁰ Herbert often suggests that his prescient characters don't select from among a panoply of futures unfolding before them in a deterministic fashion from the past, but rather that they create futures, presumably through the machinery of consciousness. This perspective is clearly central to Heretics of Dune. It would seem to account for the entrapment by Paul Muad'Dib within a single future -- probably as the oracle focuses on a given future he establishes a temporal convection cell around that future, lending it more significance than it would otherwise have. A similar fate may have befallen Leto II and his universe: an entrapment that must be terminated.

Taraza ponders the Honored Matres, who

. . . .had not the least awareness of the Tyrant's continuing viselike hold on human destiny nor of the need to break that hold.

[23; 451]

The Bene Gesserit have come to recognize and appreciate prescience as a magical act of creation, but an act with constraining limits. Odrade makes an attempt to convey this to Duncan Idaho at the end of the novel:

"I thought you deserved an explanation of the Mother Superior's design. It was aimed at the destruction of Rakis, you see. What she really wanted was the elimination of almost all of the worms."

"Great Gods below! Why?"

"They were an oracular force holding us in bondage. Those pearls of the Tyrant's awareness magnified that hold. He didn't predict events, he created them."

[23; 479]

³¹ See, for example, the 1986 collaboration between Frank and Brian Herbert, Man of Two Worlds, in which the extraterrestrial Dreens are able to idmage at least EM.

³² Other problems cropping up include handling relativistic time dilation and length contraction, and the special case of black holes. What are the implications of these phenomena to prescience and Other Memory in the Dune universe?

³³ As the Bene Tleilaxu have broken the Rakian spice monopoly, so the Ixians have broken the Guild monopoly on space travel. Probably Guild Steersmen are rapidly being reduced to the role of "prescient bloodhounds," although this is never discussed in the series.

Odrade considers the fates of erstwhile institutions in an Old Imperium soon to be dominated by Honored Matres:

Ix would certainly overextend itself. They had not the slightest appreciation of how competition from the Scattering would crush them.

The Guild would be shunted aside and made to pay dearly for its melange and its machinery. Guild and Ix, thrown together, would fall together.

[23; 475]

The former relevance of these institutions is fading or past -- or so Odrade believes. There may be reason to speculate that Herbert intended a different fate for Ix in Dune 7, however (see §13.02.11).

³⁴ Invisibility to prescient seekers is not synonymous with other forms of invisibility, although Herbert tends to combine them all. The no-globe that concealed Leto's journals had to be both invisible to prescient searchers and also to subterranean probes of all kinds. In Chapterhouse: Dune the great no-ship is easy to see visually on the planet's surface, but hunting Honored Matres cannot find it with their hired prescient hunters.

Ironically, Leto's requirement for the original no-globe to hide his records from prescient seekers almost certainly prompted the Ixians into the research that eventually led to the Ixian Navigation Machine.

³⁵ The Bene Gesserit probably suspect much about no-ships but know little, and why they have not pressed Ix on the matter is unknown. However, they are pursuing their own investigations into the relationships between no-technology and Foldspace.

In Chapterhouse: Dune the Bene Gesserit use the giant no-ship in which Duncan Idaho is confined as a laboratory to independently investigate these matters. The Bene Gesserit may suspect that no-technology is based on synthetic consciousness. In fact, if the Bene Gesserit do harbor such suspicions, they might not want to tip their hand to the Ixians, and so would pursue their private investigations.

³⁶ This illustrates a dicey frailty of both Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune. In order to build dramatic tension an author must use sleight of hand to conceal important facts from the reader. But when the same facts are concealed unnecessarily from the characters, the author risks losing the reader's trust. Herbert stretches out pretty far over this line in these novels. Does it really make sense that Taraza would have kept her "secret plan" secret from her Sisters?

³⁷ Patricia Riddle's 1984 Prevue article "Frank Herbert: The Legend Maker of Dune" reports:

When Bev, his wife of 38 years, died in February of 1984, Herbert had been with her at their vacation home in Maui for three months. The week before she passed away, she made him promise to complete the sixth Dune volume -- Chapterhouse: Dune -- by its deadline five months away. "I worked 17 hours a day, seven days a week," Herbert recalls, "and I did it in two months! It was great therapy."

[53]

Herbert had written two of his most complex novels in less than 20 months (!), during the most stressful period of his life.

³⁸ With minor manipulation of the shapes of a few letters, ODRADE morphs into ORACLE. She possesses oracular powers that raise trepidation within the Sisterhood, but also she sets the Bene Gesserit (and the Honored Matres) on an entirely fresh course.

³⁹ Her name evokes Timur the Lame, perhaps underscoring her perceptive insights in spite of mounting disability incurred by advancing years.

⁴⁰ Any mention of little makers has long since disappeared from discussion of the sandworm life cycle.

⁴¹ As with the failure in Heretics of Dune to acquire any intelligence about the returned Lost Ones to Gammu, another obvious weakness in both novels is the complete absence of intelligence about the Scattering. Even if Scattering amounts to a "blind jump" through Foldspace, those who Scatter retain navigational information that allows their return. At a minimum, then, the Bene Gesserit should require their Scattered Sisters to return and provide navigational information by which Chapterhouse may know how to reach them. Failure to pursue this obvious option is another glaring intelligence failure -- especially considering that the Bene Gesserit are troubled by the fact that none of their Scattered Ones ever return.

⁴² Did Herbert intend to use the word "projectiles" here?

⁴³ In Heretics of Dune Miles Teg was required to find a human solution for the Bene Gesserit, who were too removed from humanity to arrive at such a solution on their own.

⁴⁴ A minor scene in which Odrade informs Duncan Idaho that she is permitting him to leave the no-ship, if he so desires, appeared in at least one early edition of Chapterhouse: Dune but vanished from later editions. Perhaps most interesting is that this omitted scene makes the parallel between both Jessica and Odrade "turning their backs" on Duncan and his conscience a little bit more explicit.

⁴⁵ If Lucilla could manage to escape from Lampadas, then it must be wondered whether Burzmali might also have escaped, although no hint of this is ever given in Chapterhouse: Dune.

⁴⁶ This generic mention of "one of the Edrics" is tantalizing. Are "Edrics" considered to be uncommonly prescient among the Guild Steersmen? Might this be the reason for Edric's selection to participate in the conspiracy against Muad'Dib in Dune Messiah, in spite of his stupidity?

⁴⁷ Recall, for example, Paul Muad'Dib railing against the dangers of constitutional government in Dune Messiah; see §6.03.05.

⁴⁸ Do the Honored Matres and/or Guild hunters constitute a sufficient selective pressure such that the frequency of the Siona gene is increasing throughout the population as a whole? This would seem highly unlikely, but if so, the value of no-technology should decline with time, as should the urgency for finding technology to defeat the concealing property of a no-ship. If Miles Teg can "see" no-ships through a "blink comparator" version of prescience, and if no-ships contain oracular synthetic consciousness, then we might anticipate that Miles Teg could "see" those with Siona genes in a way that no one else -- including Muad'Dib and Leto -- ever could.

⁴⁹ California State University, Fullerton.

⁵⁰ In 1982's The White Plague Herbert had virtually the entire state of Israel transferred to Brazil to survive the pandemic, so the idea wasn't exactly new in Chapterhouse: Dune.

⁵¹ Dortujla's suspicions are interesting, seeming to be in disagreement with Honored Matre beliefs that the Enemies with Many Faces are synonymous with Handlers.

⁵² The hint is given that these hypothetical creatures could have been genetically engineered by whoever created the Futars. But it is also conceivable that they could represent authentic alien intelligence.

⁵³ The emphasis on operant conditioning that runs through all of Herbert's works (perhaps expressed most definitively in 1962's "Mindfield!") has not been emphasized here. In his nonfiction essays Herbert spoke of the sinister implications of B.F. Skinner's 1948 novel Walden Two and similar other science fiction "utopian" stories and scenarios. O'Reilly points out that The Santaroga Barrier itself is styled "in deliberate imitation" of Walden Two [51; 131] to demonstrate the implicit dangers of seeking utopia through a conditioning regimen. Herbert recognized the power of conditioning -- consider how frequently the word is used in Chapterhouse: Dune alone in reference to Bene Gesserit, Honored Matres, Suk medics, gholas, Bene Tleilaxu, and most of the major characters at one time or another -- but he judged it to be frequently misunderstood (e.g., by Skinner himself) and fraught with grave social risks. Herbert also assumed that conditioning is a common psychological control mechanism running through all societies, although seldom elevated to conscious awareness. This would be a promising and fascinating thesis for someone to pursue.

⁵⁴ Here again Teg engages in psychological distancing from his enemy whom he must kill.

⁵⁵ In the attack on Gammu Duncan carries the scenario one step further:

. . . .Idaho had brought back the shield with its awesome destruction when struck by a lasgun beam. Shields on suspensors hidden in what appeared to be soldiers (but were actually inflated uniforms) spread out ahead of troops. Lasgun fire at them produced clean atomics to clear large areas.

[08; 390]

⁵⁶ The only "Internet" that existed when Chapterhouse: Dune was written was that used by universities and the military, text-based menus with hyperlinks to other text-based menus, all at a crawling transmission rate. Still, Herbert may well have been aware of its existence, and probably anticipated some of its possibilities.

⁵⁷ This could be an indication of universal holographic Other Memory, in which an individual faces the prospect of accessing any Other Memory, regardless of his own genetic lineage, from past or present (or from futures?): a Universe Wide Web (UWW) of consciousness, and memory, and sensory experience.

⁵⁸ This is an obvious return to the theme of 1973's Threshold: The Blue Angels Experience, in which the union between man and machine grows seamless.

⁵⁹ The matter of Odrade's sacrifice on Junction must be considered. She provided no information that aided in the attack on Junction. Could she have simply not gone there and so survived? This subplot seems superfluous, having no more "reason" than insuring Murbella's promotion -- just as the "reason" for the feint against Gammu was to rescue the Rabbi and Rebecca. It would have been preferable, for example, if Odrade had to make the trip to provide intelligence in advance of the attack in order to fill in holes in Teg's century-old information. Ahhh, well. . . .

⁶⁰ In Dune Messiah the so-called Tleilaxu toy Bijaz primes the Hayt ghola to kill Paul Muad'Dib:

"And now I know your target," Hayt said. "You were aimed at me."

"And I've hit it right on!" Bijaz said. "You made such a big target, how could I miss?" He nodded as though to himself. "Now I will sing to you." He began to hum, a keening, whining monotonous theme, repeated over and over.

Hayt stiffened, experiencing odd pains that played up and down his spine. . . .Every feature focused on the pursed-up mouth from which that monotonous noise issued. The sound made Hayt think of ancient rituals, folk memories, old words and customs, half-forgotten meanings in lost mutterings. Something vital was happening here -- a bloody play of ideas across Time. Elder ideas lay tangled in the dwarf's singing. It was like a blazing light in the distance, coming nearer and nearer, illuminating life across a span of centuries.

"What are you doing to me?" Hayt gasped.

"You are the instrument I was taught to play," Bijaz said. "I am playing you. . . ."

[14; 208-9]

This is similar to the functioning of a distrans. Could Hayt's metallic eyes represent a distrans which Bijaz's song activates or programs?

⁶¹ In Man of Two Worlds the Dreen Ryll pilots a sentient spacecraft that prefers to call itself "Patricia."

⁶² It is impossible to overlook the fact that Marty and Daniel are obvious reflections of Beverly and Frank Herbert themselves, presumably recast in the "American Gothic" mode as a form of self-deprecation. According to this conjecture, "Beverly" scolds "Frank" for letting Duncan and the others escape his control within the Dune universe that the two of them created. Of course as the Great Authors in the Sky, their creative powers would be god-like from the perspective of their characters. Some speculate that Herbert harbored doubts about ever finishing Dune 7. Putting themselves in the story this way is another kind of tribute, reaching for a form of immortality.

⁶³ This idea of the "ego core" reflects Karl Jaspers' philosophical notion of Existenz, the subjective state of "authentic" being, as opposed to the Dasein. Existenz signifies the internal psychological universe we inhabit, the mental model our minds formulate of the external, physical universe. But once you start down that maze of mirrors of "who is it that thinks," it is possible to get lost in this eternally lonely internal universe.

⁶⁴ If you instantaneously arrived in a different galaxy, would it even theoretically be possible to "locate" yourself relative to the Milky Way? Could you even theoretically identify the Milky Way, even if it was a relatively bright object in the night sky? Besides the lack of a standard signal, there is also the delay of information caused by the restriction of the speed of light: the Milky Way you would see in your immediate vicinity would be millions of years older than you might have seen it through a telescope back home. . . .

⁶⁵ This precludes the Bene Gesserit or anyone else from obtaining intelligence about what is going on in "the Scattering": it is impossible to determine where in spacetime Scattered no-ships have gone. This alone should insure the survival of humanity and Leto's Golden Path.

"The Scattering" is not monolithic, moving out in uniform waves in all directions from the Old Imperium. Every Scattered no-ship is isolated from every other, probably each in its own isolated universe.

⁶⁶ Bellonda knows of what she speaks. Odrade once considered:

The Bene Gesserit crèche on Al Dhanab's artificial world, one of the original Sisterhood safe planets. (Later, she learned that the Bene Gesserit once considered making the entire planet into a no-chamber. Energy requirements defeated this plan.)

[23; 190]

The matter of Al Dhanab's artificial world is a minor curiosity itself about which a little is known:

After surviving the spice agony, Odrade had been sent to Al Dhanab, an equivalent of Salusa Secundus, there to be conditioned deliberately on a planet of constant testing: high cliffs and dry gorges, hot winds and frigid winds, little moisture and too much. It was judged a suitable proving ground for someone whose destiny might take her to Rakis. Tough survivors emerged from such conditioning. The tall, supple, and muscular Odrade was one of the toughest.

[23; 347]

A slightly different account of this phase of Odrade's training is given in Chapterhouse: Dune:

Proctors had tried to root out Odrade's "deep desire for personal affinities," but failed at last, not quite sure they had failed but always suspicious. They had sent her to Al Dhanab finally, a place deliberately maintained as a mimic of the worst in Salusa Secundus, there to be conditioned on a planet of constant testing. A place worse than Dune in some respects: high cliffs and dry gorges, hot winds and frigid winds, too little moisture and too much. The Sisterhood had thought of it as a proving ground for those destined to survive on Dune. But none of this had touched that secret core within Odrade. Sea Child remained intact.

[08; 32]

⁶⁷Although the Sisterhood's decision was foreshadowed when Miles Teg was served soup by a cyborg in Heretics of Dune [23; 394].

13.02.11. Ix.

2009-08-05T00:32:00.001-07:00

13.02.11. Ix.

IN THE EARLIER books in the series, we never saw CHOAM or the Landsraad in action, both of which institutions are, by the time of Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune, long gone or nearly irrelevant.

But we did get to see great swaths of the Bene Gesserit, and certainly more of the Bene Tleilaxu than we might have preferred.

We've seen Spacing Guild Steersmen, especially Edric in Dune Messiah, and we've seen Mentats galore, and dim-witted priests running amok down the millennia, and Suk medics on a few occasions, and marauding smugglers and mercenaries, Imperial Sardaukar, swarming Honored Matres, earnest Fremen and fanatic Fish Speakers. . . .

What's missing?

Ix: the 800-pound gorilla not quite in the room.

After those suggestive hints in God Emperor of Dune, and all the talk about no-technology and Foldspace and the magic universe, Perfect Face Dancers, Futars, Marty and Daniel and the Universe Wide Web -- all of which are seemingly interrelated -- we can no longer neglect the Ixians.

Of all the great powers in the Dune saga, Herbert has revealed the least about the Ixians. This fact is all the more remarkable given that the foundational touchstone underpinning the entire series is the Butlerian Jihad, which oversaw the mass destruction of the very kinds of technology upon which Ix rests.

The Butlerian Jihad allowed Herbert to construct a feudal culture in a distant, space-faring future. The Butlerian Jihad allowed Herbert to avoid a shot-'em-up space opera. The Butlerian Jihad forced Herbert's contending political factions to develop their mental abilities, to strive for various styles of hyperconsciousness. The Dune series is all about mind over technology -- and only the Ixians take the side of technology.

The flavor of the series is intimately connected to the Butlerian Jihad, and only the Ixians consistently strain against this colossal historical force.

Given Herbert's artistic conception of cyclical history, it would not be surprising -- if he contemplated a dramatic end to his series -- to shake it to its foundations by taking on the Butlerian Jihad in a head-on collision. All the other novels in the series have kept unfettered technology at arm's length. It would not be inconsistent with Herbert's modus operandi to confront his characters with technology now in an overwhelming way.

Hwi Noree and her Uncle Malky were Ixians. Leto ordered the first Ixian no-globe in which to conceal his dictatels from prying eyes, both the optical and prescient variety. After that technology was proven, Malky secreted himself away inside another no-globe and created Hwi Noree. The Ixians went on to construct no-ships based on the same technology that produced the original no-globes, simultaneously causing ulcers for the Bene Gesserit, given their knee-jerk terror at the prospect of revived machine intelligence.

Which leads inexorably to the theory that a synthetic consciousness (SC) lies at the heart of all no-technology: the universe is now riddled with clandestine SC.

As has already been pointed out, Herbert never uses the word "Foldspace" until Chapterhouse: Dune.

"I find it difficult to contemplate humankind spreading into an unlimited universe," Tam said. "The possibilities. . . ."

"Infinite numbers game. . . .We've been playing the infinity game since we learned to jump Foldspace."

There was no joy in Bellonda. "It's not a game!"

Odrade could appreciate Bellonda's feelings. We have never seen empty space. Always more galaxies. Tam's right. It's daunting when you focus on that Golden Path.

[08; 132]

The comment about seeing empty space is interesting, for it mentions the possibility of something that could happen but is never observed to happen. This break from a Gaussian distribution demands an explanation. Some selective process intrudes.

During the Scattering, no-ships do not depart for specific coordinates corresponding to known and identified galaxies⁶⁴ -- it is closer to someone pushing a big red "Scatter" button and waiting to see where they arrive. . . .

The comment about "empty space" means that no-ships never arrive in the void of intergalactic space. Ordinarily the no-ship retains information of its path that can allow it to return to its point of origin (i.e., to the Old Imperium), but designation of destination is stochastic⁶⁵. Either Scattering no-ships are built to arrive in a spacetime containing galactic densities of matter, or they (like Ship in Destination: Void and its sequels) create their destinations.

This insight allows better understanding of Bellonda's comment:

"These speculations are useless," Bellonda muttered. "We don't even know if Foldspace introduces us to one universe or many. . . .or even an infinite number of expanding and collapsing bubbles."

[08; 132]

Nor does it seem relevant in any practical sense whether or not no-ships create new universes -- at least, not so far in the Dune series. . . .

It is interesting, however, to note that the old notion that Paul Muad'Dib selected between futures has largely been replaced by the opinion that both he and Leto created futures (e.g., [08; 140]). In a spirit of symmetry, we should probably, therefore, believe that it is more likely that no-ships create new universes rather than navigate between galaxies.

The Absolute/Infinity Breach is no less daunting in terms of space as it is in terms of time.

Who built these no-ships? Who is most likely to possess valuable information about them -- how they operate, and where they go? Who is the go-to source for information about no-ships and Foldspace, and who has been conspicuously ignored in the Dune series so far?

The Ixians.

Herbert provides other hints about the nature of Foldspace, but they bring little clarity to the matter:

Resonances and tachyon theory held his attention for a time. Tachyon theory figured in Holzmann's original design. "Techys," Holzmann had called his energy source.

A wave system that ignored light speed's limits. Light speed obviously did not limit foldspace ships. Techys?

"It works because it works," Idaho muttered. "Faith. Like any other religion."

[08; 359]

Another strange incongruity. One important advantage of a space folding scheme is that it avoids the paradoxes of supraluminal speeds and relativistic effects, and yet Herbert reverts to a suggestion that the mechanism is not a matter of finding shortcuts through space, but rests upon some supraluminal signaling process. Contradiction.

So many obvious clues left unpursued. . . .Duncan alerts Bellonda to the matter, and although she is obviously impressed with his arguments, she never actively pursues their implications:

"Let our imaginations roam and fashion our experiments accordingly. Of what use would even a no-planet be if someone could penetrate the shielding?"

She glanced at the boy. Idaho knew their suspicion that the Bashar had seen the no-ships? Naturally! A Mentat of his abilities. . . .bits and pieces assembled into a masterful projection.

"It would require the entire output of a G-3 sun to shield any halfway livable planet." Dry and very cool the way she looked down at him.

"Nothing is out of the question in the Scattering."

[08; 247-8]⁶⁶

The connection here to Whipping Star -- and its attendant implications -- cannot be overlooked:

It was Furuneo's belief that Taprisiots distorted space in a way similar to that of a Caleban jumpdoor, sliding between the dimensions. If that was really what Caleban jumpdoors did. Most experts denied this theory, pointing out that it would require energies equivalent to those produced by fair-sized stars.

[33; 3]

Bellonda puzzles over Duncan's words and ideas:

No-planets? As the mass of an object increased, energy to nullify gravitation passed thresholds matched to prime numbers. No-shields met even greater energy barriers. Another magnitude of exponential increase. Was Idaho suggesting that someone in the Scattering might have found a way around the problem? She asked him.

"Ixians have not penetrated Holzmann's unification concept," he said. "They merely use it -- a theory that works even when you don't understand it."

Why does he direct my attention to the technocracy of Ix? Ixians had their fingers in too many pies for the Bene Gesserit to trust them.

[08; 248]

The phrase relating energy thresholds to prime numbers sounds like gibberish, but it may be an indication that Holtzman physics is intimately entwined with the constants that shape the universe -- no real surprise there. Duncan's comment about theories that work even when they're not understood goes back to an epigraph quoting Taraza in which she states: We are not looking at a new state of matter but at a newly recognized relationship between consciousness and matter. . . .There is no need to understand these forces before using them to shape the physical universe [23; 473].

Duncan underscores a blind spot for the Bene Gesserit: all signs point directly at Ix, and the Bene Gesserit ought to recognize and pursue these clues.

Duncan continues:

"Aren't you curious why the Tyrant never suppressed Ix?" he asked. And when she continued to stare at him: "He only bridled them. He was fascinated by the idea of human and machine inextricably bound to each other, each testing the limits of the other."

"Cyborgs?"

"Among other things."

Didn't Idaho know the residue of revulsion left by the Butlerian Jihad even among the Bene Gesserit? Alarming! The convergence of what each -- human and machine -- could do. Considering machine limitations, that was a succinct description of Ixian shortsightedness. Was Idaho saying the Tyrant subscribed to the idea of Machine Intelligence? Foolishness! She turned away from him.

[08; 248-9]

When a Reverend Mother Mentat turns away in revulsion from facing a truth, red flags wave hysterically.

Men becoming machines and machines becoming men. . . .the theme of 1973's Threshold: The Blue Angels Experiment, and an explicit reference to the convergent evolution between humans and machines often encountered in the Dune series, and in other works by Herbert as well.

Of course it would fascinate the God Emperor, who looked beyond what Bellonda calls "Machine Intelligence" to synthetic consciousness.

Eventually the Bene Gesserit themselves are pushed into this arena by the whirlwind of history:

. . . .Clairby mortally injured in a 'thopter crash. Mortal unless. . . .The unless was spelled out for her and it added up to cyborg. . . .

Where do we draw the line? . . .First the axlotl tanks and now this.

. . . .Cyborg was one of those potpourri words, too. Where did mechanical additions to human flesh become dominant? When was the Cyborg no longer human? Temptations intensified -- "Just this one little adjustment." And so easy to adjust until the potpourri-human became unquestioningly obedient.

. . . .Odrade leaned forward and keyed for transmit. "Cyborg him," she said.

[08; 295-6]

A decision we would never have seen before in the Dune series⁶⁷.

Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune were building toward a crescendo that involved the nature of Foldspace, of no-ships, of the Universe Wide Web. Questions of human and/or synthetic consciousness impressed into futures of unmanifested Avyakta are central to the pattern Herbert was exploring. Whether or not visions of Ixian killing machines described by Leto and Siona in God Emperor of Dune -- and supposed by Hadi Benotto to be an incursion yet to come [18; 453] -- would have come to pass in Dune 7. The Ixians have been misjudged all along, and now they have a lot of explaining to do.

13.02.10 In the Garden.

2009-08-05T00:31:00.002-07:00

13.02.10 In the Garden.

NO MORE ENDURING mystery from all the Dune series exists than the identity and significance of the mysterious figures out of "American Gothic" in the garden at the end of Chapterhouse: Dune.

They haunt Duncan Idaho throughout the novel.

Without warning, the sense of being in the Great Hold would vanish. Then. . . .the net shimmering in a molten sky. He was aware when the vision came that he was not really seeing a net. His mind translated what the senses could not define.

A shimmering net undulating like an infinite borealis.

Then the net would part and he would see the two people -- man and woman. How ordinary they appeared and yet extraordinary. A grandmother and grandfather in antique clothing: bib coveralls for the man and a long dress with headscarf for the woman. Working in a flower garden! He thought it must be more of the illusion. I am seeing this but it is not really what I see.

They always noticed him eventually. He heard their voices. "There he is again, Marty," the man would say, calling the woman's attention to Idaho.

"I wonder how it is he can look through?" Marty asked once. "Doesn't seem possible."

"He's spread pretty thin, I think. Wonder if he knows the danger?"

Danger. That was the word that always jerked him out of the vision.

[08; 85]

It is impossible to separate the scene from the famous Grant Wood painting, which makes the incongruity in this last published Dune novel most disquieting.

Duncan possesses a talent allowing him to peer through something like a "dimensional window." Besides this bizarre fact -- possibly explained by Tleilaxu manipulation of their ghola, possibly not -- three facts are most striking about this vignette.

First is the physical setting of Marty and Daniel (his name is learned later): a flower garden conjured out of time in this Dune novel. Second are the anachronistic Christian names of these characters: "Marty" and "Daniel" can hardly be considered "fashionable" names in Herbert's Dune universe⁶¹. Third is the fact that Marty and Daniel are very much aware of Duncan watching them, and while surprised by this, they are not terribly concerned about it.

Whatever is happening here, it seems to have no connection to anything else we've encountered in the Dune series.

Duncan's next interaction with this vision is less passive:

. . . .[Duncan] saw what he had come to call "the net" and the elderly couple defined by criss-crossed lines, bodies visible through a shimmering of jeweled ropes -- green, blue, gold, and a silver so brilliant it made his eyes ache.

He sensed godlike stability in these people, but something common about them. The word ordinary came to mind. The by-now-familiar garden landscape stretched out behind them: floral bushes (roses, he thought), rolling lawns, tall trees.

The couple stared back at him with an intensity that made Idaho feel naked.

. . . .Why did that elderly couple look so familiar? Someone from his past? Family?

. . . .[Daniel] had the most benign expression Idaho had ever seen. Up-curved smile creases at the corners of his mouth. He held a small shovel in his left hand, and on his extended right palm he balanced what appeared to be a small metal ball. The ball emitted a piercing whistle that made Idaho clap his hands over his ears. This did not stop the sound. It faded away of itself. He lowered his hands.

Reassuring faces. That thought aroused Idaho's suspicions because now he recognized the familiarity. They looked somewhat like Face Dancers, even to the pug noses.

He leaned forward but the vision kept its distance. "Face Dancers," he whispered.

Net and elderly couple vanished.

[08; 193-4]

So Duncan associates them with Face Dancers. The whistling ball would seem to support this belief, as it is consistent with a Tleilaxu "whistling language" communication or probing device of some kind.

Duncan believes the "net" is a psychological construct -- a structure imposed by his mind in place of something he cannot really see; similarly, he doubts that two people are really working in a flower garden: I am seeing this but it is not really what I see [08; 85]. He suspects it is simulation, not normal reality.

A special attentiveness given to pieces of art wends its way all through Chapterhouse: Dune, from Van Gogh's "Cottages at Cordeville" to Sheeana's "The Void" to Dama's "Ballet Master" to, as seen here, "American Gothic." The fact that these scenes of Marty and Daniel in Chapterhouse: Dune are modeled on "American Gothic" may itself be a clue to Herbert's intent. Grant Wood's painting contains numerous internal reflections. The three-pronged pitchfork is obviously shadowed by the stitching of the farmer's overalls, but this geometric figure may also be discovered inverted in the gothic attic window in the background farmhouse. Furthermore, that tridentate glyph is repeated in the very structural features of the old farmer's face. His shirt recapitulates the siding on the house in the background, and his wife/daughter's brown dress is suspiciously similar to the brown curtains hanging in the window. Wood is making a comment about how these people have come to resemble the very landscape in which they tarry: the reflections are internalized.

Marty and Daniel can be considered in a similar way. Duncan does note the similar pug noses of the pair, and correlates them with Face Dancers. Are they Face Dancers, even Perfect Face Dancers, or are they something that has grown to resemble Face Dancers? Are they separable from their background, or do they mimic it? And Duncan guesses that what he sees is only simulation -- they are not real⁶².

Such questions inform Duncan's suspicion that the Bene Tleilaxu did not tamper with his physical body but with his mind, and that this mental tampering has given him the ability to penetrate to this vision of Marty and Daniel. His deep, introspective search for the source of this tampering returns him to speculation about the Mentat view of the "ego core" and the Hall of Mirrors, as described (§13.02.03) by Miles Teg⁶³. Of course with Duncan Idaho, who has undergone enormous numbers of both physical and mental reconstructions over the millennia, the challenge of locating his "true self" is cumbersome.

Faces. A succession of masks, different views of this person he called myself. Slightly imbalanced faces. Hair sometimes gray, sometimes the jet karakul of his current life. Sometimes humorous, sometimes grave and seeking inward for wisdom to meet a new day. Somewhere in all of that lay a consciousness that observed and deliberated. Someone who made choices. The Tleilaxu had tampered with that.

Idaho felt his blood pumping hard and knew danger was present. This was what he was intended to experience. . . .but not by the Tleilaxu. He had been born with it.

This is what it means to be alive.

No memory from his other lives, nothing the Tleilaxu had done to him, none of that changed his deepest awareness one whit.

[08; 195]

Mask after successive mask is stripped away, leaving. . . .nothing.

The possibility that Duncan's visions of Marty and Daniel are unrelated to anything the Bene Tleilaxu ever did to him must be seriously entertained. It is possible that it his unique wealth of personal lifetimes (as opposed to the archival Other Memory that Reverend Mothers may tap into) that has given him the facility to perceive the net and Marty and Daniel. If so, this may well be "the reason" Leto kept reincarnating Duncan Idaho -- to provide him with this gift to see into a deeper reality.

Immediately on the tails of his scrolling vision of weapons, known and previously unimagined, Duncan sees Marty and Daniel again.

Abruptly, the shimmering net from his vision replaced scrolling weapons and he saw the elderly couple in their garden. They glared at him. The man's voice became audible. "Stop spying on us!"

Idaho gripped the arms of his chair and jerked himself forward but the vision disappeared before he could study details.

Spying?

[08; 358]

With Duncan slipping haphazardly from the scrolling weapons to Marty and Daniel, one must wonder whether they are themselves part of the "Universe Wide Web."

Scytale may have a secret method for piloting the giant no-ship, but so does Sheeana [08; 267]. As the Bene Gesserit and Honored Matres begin to arrive on Chapterhouse after the confrontations on Gammu and Junction, Duncan and Sheeana know their time has come. They flee Chapterhouse into the Scattering in the no-ship, taking with them Miles Teg, the Rabbi and his people, Scytale, and various Bene Gesserit Proctors.

But not before Duncan has one last vision of Marty and Daniel:

Idaho watched his projection. There they were: the old couple in their garden setting! He saw the net shimmering in front of them, the man gesturing at it, smiling in round-faced satisfaction. They moved in a transparent overlay that revealed ship circuits behind them. The net grew larger -- not lines but ribbons thicker than the projected circuits.

The man's lips shaped words but there was no sound. "We expected you."

Idaho's hands went to his console, fingers splayed in the comfield to grasp required elements of the circuit control. No time for niceties. Gross disruption. He was into the core within a second. From there, it was a simple matter to dump entire segments. Navigation went first. He saw the net begin to thin, the look of surprise on the man's face. Nullfields were next. Idaho felt the ship lurching in foldspace. The net tipped, becoming elongated with the two watchers foreshortened and thinned. Idaho wiped out star-memory circuits, taking his own data with them.

Net and watchers vanished.

[08; 453-4]

Duncan, Sheeana, and all the others have departed the universe of Dune.

Strangest of all, Herbert gives the final chapter of Chapterhouse: Dune to Marty and Daniel. Marty remonstrates against Daniel for letting the no-ship get away:

"And I had such a nice planet picked out for them," Marty said. "One of the best. A real test of their abilities. . . .They had a Tleilaxu Master, too," Marty said. "I saw him when they went under the net. I would have so liked to study another Master."

". . . .They have such a hard time accepting that Face Dancers can be independent of them."

"I don't see why. It's a natural consequence. They gave us the power to absorb the memories and experiences of other people. Gather enough of those and. . . ."

"It's personas we take, Marty."

[08; 458-9]

Many readers are troubled by the god-like powers evinced by Daniel and Marty. The notion that this peculiar pair might on a whim snatch the no-ship carrying these important characters and whisk them off to "a nice planet" seems so far outside the bailiwick of Herbert's original conception of Dune as to verge on fantasy. Can 5,000 years of highbrow adventure and philosophical enormity really teeter on the brink of casual delivery to "a nice planet?"

More importantly, the insinuation is clear that Marty and Daniel derive from Face Dancer stock. Are they the Handlers who direct Futars? It would seem more likely that Marty and Daniel represent a separate lineage from Handlers. Marty and Daniel are probably some of the "Enemies of Many Faces."

Duncan noted that none of the Bene Gesserit being sent into the Scattering ever return; ergo, they are being intercepted. It would require little imagination to guess that Marty and Daniel with their "net" are performing this interception. Are they diverting those who would Scatter to destinations of their own choosing? Just how successful has the Scattering been?

It is of interest that Herbert draws a distinction between absorbing "memories" versus "personas." This was already demonstrated in Heretics of Dune by the false priest Tuek, who became the persona he absorbed. By absorbing multiple personas, these Perfect Face Dancers, or mimics of Perfect Face Dancers, seem to conjoin all into new personas of their own. . . .much as Leto was an integration of his Other Memory personas.

"You know what you let get away, Daniel?" she demanded, coming up beside him. "That Master had a nullentropy tube in his chest. Full of ghola cells, too!"

"I saw it."

"That's why you let them get away!"

"Didn't let them." His pruning shears went snick-snick. "Gholas. He's welcome to them."

[08; 460]

This is an interesting comment, coming from a Face Dancer descendant.

Murbella, upon learning of the departure of Duncan and all the rest in the no-ship, engages in a somewhat unusual exchange with Dar-within:

How do you guide me now, Dar?

You want guidance? A guided tour of your life? Is that why I died?

But they took the Van Gogh, too! . . .Why did they take it, Dar?

. . . .Can't you see what she intends?

The Missionaria scheme!

Oh, more than that. It's the next phase: Muad'Dib to Tyrant to Honored Matres to us to Sheeana. . . .to what? Can't you see it? The thing is right there at the lip of your thoughts. Accept it as you would swallow a bitter drink.

Murbella shuddered.

See it? The bitter medicine of a Sheeana future? We once thought all medicines had to be bitter or they were not effective. No healing power in the sweet.

Must it happen, Dar?

Some will choke on that medicine. But the survivors may create interesting patterns.

[08; 456-7]

The bitter medicine of a Sheeana future? What is that? What rival coming back to confront the next generation of Sisters?

Consider: cycles upon cycles, a forever expanding arc of the spiral. . . .Build up the superhero mystique in Dune, tear it down in Dune Messiah. Elevate it to an unprecedented level in Children of Dune, bring it crashing down like never before in God Emperor of Dune. Raise up an awesome new force in the Honored Matres to shatter Dune itself in Heretics of Dune, then crush all expectation by merging the Honored Matres and Bene Gesserit in Chapterhouse: Dune. How can Sheeana top this cycle of cycles in Dune 7?

Where in the Scattering Duncan and Sheeana will end up is unknown, but it is impossible to imagine Sheeana embracing the "Missionaria scheme" in any traditional, manipulative way. But how about a non-traditional way? Might we anticipate the re-ascension of those pearls of Leto's awareness?

The possibilities are flabbergasting. For example, in a universe in which Sheeana and her descendants take on the skin that is not their own, no one person can become a Tyrant, and all are first among equals.

13.02.09 Scytale.

2009-08-05T00:31:00.001-07:00

13.02.09 Scytale.

THE BENE TLEILAXU are no less irritating in Chapterhouse: Dune than they were in Heretics of Dune, but at least here they have fewer speaking parts.

Tylwyth Waff died on Rakis in Heretics of Dune, and we learn in Chapterhouse: Dune that the other Bene Tleilaxu fared no better under Honored Matre brutality. In fact, Scytale is the last surviving Tleilaxu Master. He was attempting to leave Bandalong when Honored Matre attackers arrived. Odrade questions him about the disaster.

"Descendants of people we sent into the Scattering returned with captive Futars. A mingling of human and cat, as you doubtless know. But they did not reproduce in our tanks. And before we could determine why, the ones brought to us died." The betrayers brought us only two! We should have suspected.

"They didn't bring you very many Futars, did they? You should have suspected they were bait."

See? That is what they do with small revelations!

[08; 289]

Scytale's travels and experiences after leaving planet Tleilax are curious, to say the least.

Odrade said, "Sisters who rescued you say you commanded a no-ship at Junction preparing for the first foldspace leap when Honored Matres attacked. You were coming to your ship in a one-man skitter, they said, and veered away just before the explosions. You detected the attackers?"

"Yes." Reluctance in his voice.

[08; 287]

Did the Honored Matres arrive at Junction in no-ships? It would seem likely. How then did Scytale detect them? The question remains unanswered.

"And knew they might locate the no-ship from your trajectory. So you fled, leaving your brothers [at Junction] to be destroyed."

He spoke with the utter bitterness of a tragic witness: "Earlier, when we were outbound from Tleilax, we saw that attack begin. Our explosions to destroy everything of value to attackers and the burners from space created the holocaust. We fled then, too."

[08; 287]

Scytale departed planet Tleilax before the Honored Matres arrived, and the Bene Tleilaxu themselves destroyed Tleilax to prevent their secrets from falling into Honored Matre hands. Scytale then fled,

"But not directly to Junction."

"Everywhere we searched, they had been before us. They had the ashes but I had our secrets." Remind her that I still have something of value to trade! He tapped a finger against his head.

"You sought Guild or CHOAM sanctuary at Junction," she said. "How fortunate our spy ship was there to scoop you up before the enemy could react."

[08; 287]

Scytale seems to have taken a one-man skitter to Junction to seek refuge. As he returned toward his orbiting no-ship, the Honored Matres attacked, and Scytale veered off, at which point the Bene Gesserit rescued (captured) him, and brought him eventually to Chapterhouse, where he is incarcerated in the grounded giant no-ship, but isolated from Duncan Idaho. He is not a prescient security risk, as Odrade periodically takes him for strolls outside the no-ship.

Scytale's ability to control the ghola Duncan Idaho is a closely held secret:

. . . .Somehow, I must contrive it that Idaho and I meet intimately. There's always the whistling language we impress on every ghola. I must not appear too anxious. . . .

[08; 104]

And later:

Scytale whistled while he walked down the corridor fronting his quarters, taking his afternoon exercise. Down and back. Whistling.

Get them accustomed to me whistling.

[08; 145]

The Bene Gesserit probably suspect this possibility. In Heretics of Dune Taraza witnessed Waff's attempt to control the false Rakian priest Tuek with the Face Dancer humming language:

Odrade had been watching Waff as the mimic Tuek spoke. Surprise! The Bene Tleilax Master had never before been addressed thus by one of his minions. What a shock! Rage convulsed his features. Humming sounds like the noises of angry insects came from his mouth, a modulated thing that clearly was some kind of language. The Face Dancers of his entourage froze but the false Tuek merely returned attention to his counselors.

[23; 415]⁶⁰

The Bene Tleilaxu whistling language would probably have presented great peril to Duncan Idaho early in Dune 7. And Scytale apparently has devised or discovered a secret mechanism for activating and piloting the no-ship as well [08; 307].

Waff provided the Bene Gesserit with the secret of the axlotl tanks, but he did not reveal the means of synthetic melange production. As a fallback plan in case they should fail to establish a spice cycle on Chapterhouse, the Bene Gesserit longing for this secret is the basis for "negotiations" between Odrade and Scytale in this novel. Scytale refuses to talk until provided with Face Dancer attendants, which the Bene Gesserit deny him: impasse.

Scytale dreams of Perfect Face Dancers:

The. . . .ones he longed to bring into existence, made him catch his breath when he thought of them. Perfect Face Dancers! Perfect mimics. Perfect recorders of a victim's persona. Capable of deceiving even the witches of the Bene Gesserit. Not even shere could prevent them from capturing the mind of another.

[08; 94]

But for all his conniving, time runs out for Scytale, just as it did for Waff. A spice blow occurs on Chapterhouse. Juvenile sandworms emerge. The spice cycle has been reproduced. The Bene Gesserit have no more need for synthetic spice from axlotl tanks. And the Sisterhood seek a Scytale they can better control and manipulate, and which may provide them with some answers that they desire:

"You've taken some of my cells, haven't you? You're growing a replacement Scytale in your tanks!"

"Of course we are. You don't think Sisters would let the last Master end here, do you?"

[08; 288]

But Scytale does retain one great secret that may yet turn the tables on his enemies no matter the odds:

Scytale rubbed his breast, reminding himself of what was hidden there with such skill that not even a scar marked the place. Each Master had carried this resource -- a nullentropy capsule preserving the seed cells of a multitude: fellow Masters of the central kehl, Face Dancers, technical specialists and others he knew would be attractive to the women of Shaitan. . . .and to many weakling powindah! Paul Atreides and his beloved Chani were there. (Oh what that had cost in searching garments of the dead for random cells!) The original Duncan Idaho was there with other Atreides minions -- the Mentat Thufir Hawat, Gurney Halleck, the Fremen Naib Stilgar. . . .enough potential servants and slaves to people a Tleilaxu universe.

[08; 94]

The ultimate plot twist -- the ultimate soap opera solution in which any vanished character out of thousands of years of history can be magically restored to life. . . .

It is not remarkable that the Bene Tleilaxu would maintain such a cellular library, given the possibility of the nullentropy container. The greater question is what its value would be. A Paul Atreides restored to life 5,000 years after his death would inherit no throne. House Atreides no longer exists. What Truths could he reveal that his son, Leto, didn't already divulge? It could be interesting, but how could it be useful to the Tleilaxu?

It seems gimmicky for Frank Herbert.

13.02.08 Murbella Promoted.

2009-08-05T00:30:00.003-07:00

13.02.08 Murbella Promoted.

NO ONE IN Chapterhouse: Dune goes through so many transitions as Murbella.

She begins as an Honored Matre prisoner of the Bene Gesserit who is sexually bonded to Duncan Idaho. But she is trained as a Bene Gesserit. Murbella's plan is to acquire and abscond with Bene Gesserit training and wisdom, but the more she learns about the Bene Gesserit, the more she recognizes what serious shortcomings the Honored Matres harbor in comparison: she readily succumbs to Odrade's plan with lockstep precision.

The love story of Murbella and Duncan parallels the changing relationship between Murbella and the Bene Gesserit. As she becomes more like them, her relationship to Duncan suffers proportionately. When she undergoes the Spice Agony and acquires Other Memory she enters a manic phase that is the beginning of the end with Duncan.

Murbella's Other Memory should add substantially to Bene Gesserit understanding of the history of the Honored Matres and the Scattering. Unfortunately, and perhaps unfairly, Herbert reveals very little from this vital source of information; in fact, about all that is confirmed is that Fish Speaker democracy led to Honored Matre autocracy [08; 355]: an unsatisfying summation.

"The tyranny of the minority cloaked in the mask of the majority," Odrade called it, her voice exultant. "Downfall of democracy. Either overthrown by its own excesses or eaten away by bureaucracy."

". . . .The Bene Gesserit may be the only ones ever to create the all-powerful jury," Murbella said. "Juries are not popular with legalists. Juries oppose the law. They can ignore judges."

She laughed in the darkness. "Evidence! What is evidence except those things you are allowed to perceive? That's what Law tries to control: carefully managed reality."

[08; 355]

A continuation of the Looking for America arguments and indictments of some of the dangers of democracy pronounced earlier by Lucilla to Dama. The "accumulation of power in places voters could not touch" [08; 355] is a revisiting of the Shadow Government of The Dosadi Experiment: civil servants and bureaucrats, aptly regarding elected officials as boisterous transients, can profoundly influence democracies while remaining outside the limelight, or rather, because they remain outside the limelight.

Functioning in Mentat mode, Duncan comes to a disturbing realization about Murbella:

Idaho found this realization profoundly dislocating. Honored Matres fugitives! Barbaric but ignorant in the way of all such raiders even from before the Vandals. Moved by impulsive greed as much as by any other force. "Take Roman gold!" They filtered all distractions out of awareness. It was a stupefying ignorance that faltered only when the more sophisticated culture insinuated itself into the. . . .

Abruptly, he saw what Odrade was doing.

Gods below! What a fragile plan!

He pressed his palms against his eyes and forced himself not to cry out in anguish. Let them think I'm tired. But seeing Odrade's plan told him also he would lose Murbella . . . one way or another.

[08; 360]

He has understood that Murbella is to be used as ambassador between Bene Gesserit and Honored Matres: she will ensnare the Honored Matres the same way that she was herself ensnared by the Sisterhood. Odrade's survival on Junction is moot. Murbella's role will sunder her forever from Duncan.

After the battles on Gammu and Junction, Teg's armies fall dead under deployment of The Weapon. Murbella takes a no-ship down to the planet's surface. She introduces herself as an escaped Sister who can reveal the secret location of Chapterhouse to the Honored Matres. Murbella is escorted to the Grand Honored Matre Logno with her prisoners, Odrade and Miles Teg.

A showdown between Murbella and Logno follows. Odrade is killed. Murbella kills Logno and becomes both the Great Honored Matre and Reverend Mother Superior [08; 438]. Murbella orders Teg released. Both Sisterhoods, under Murbella's leadership, will enter into a new relationship⁵⁹.

Murbella now brings the Honored Matres back to Chapterhouse. She confers with Bellonda about the long-term course they will steer vis-à-vis the Honored Matres, which finally reveals the solution to the problem of love:

"Now here's what you must spread among the Sisters. We act with extreme delicacy while showing ourselves as people to admire and emulate. 'You Honored Matres may not choose to live as we live but you can learn our strengths'. . . ."

"While we go along our path admiring what we see."

"And there's our flaw. We don't give ourselves easily. Fear of love and affection! To be self-possessed has its own greed. 'See what I have? You can't have it unless you follow my ways!' Never take that attitude with Honored Matres."

"Are you telling me we have to love them?"

"How else can we make them admire us? That was Jessica's victory. When she gave, she gave it all. So much bottled up by our ways and then that overwhelming wash: everything given. It's irresistible."

"We don't compromise that easily. . . ."

"Have I said we should compromise? Compromise weakens us, and we know there are problems compromise cannot solve, decisions we must make no matter how bitter."

"Pretend to love them?"

"That's a beginning."

[08; 448-9]

Murbella has her work cut out for her.

13.02.07 Junction Endgame.

2009-08-05T00:30:00.001-07:00

13.02.07 Junction Endgame.

AFTER MILES TEG'S memories are restored, Duncan Idaho and he immediately go to work mapping out the military showdown with the Honored Matres. The Sisterhood provides them with all available intelligence. Herbert provides a bit of his psychosexual theory of war (at its foundation, the same motivation for hierarchical superstructures):

. . . .The urge to conflict went far deeper than consciousness. The Tyrant had been right. Humankind acted as "one beast." The forces impelling that great collective animal went back to tribal days and beyond, as did so many forces to which humans responded without thinking.

Mix the genes.

Expand Lebensraum for your own breeders. . . .

Odrade saw what he was doing. . . .Energy-eating drove war's violence. This was described as "greed, fear (that others will take your hoard), power hunger" and on and on into futile analyses. . . .

"The Tyrant knew," Teg said. "Duncan quotes him: 'War is behavior with roots in the single cell of the primeval seas. Eat whatever you touch or it will eat you.'"

[08; 327-8]

Really nothing here that would not be out of place in Dune Messiah. Then Teg goes on to reveal the gist of his strategy:

"What do you propose?" Bellonda at her most snappish.

"A feint at Gammu, then strike their base on Junction. For that we need first-hand observations." He stared steadily at Odrade.

He knows! The thought flared in Odrade's mind.

"You think your studies of Junction when it was a Guild base are still accurate?" Bellonda demanded.

"They haven't had time to change the place much from what I stored here." He tapped his forehead in an odd parody of the Sisterhood's gesture.

"Englobement," Odrade said.

Bellonda looked at her sharply. "The cost!"

"Losing everything is more costly," Teg said.

"Foldspace sensors don't have to be large," Odrade said. "Duncan would set them to create a Holzmann explosion on contact?"

"The explosions would be visible and would give us a trajectory." He sat back and looked at an indefinite area on Odrade's rear wall. Would they accept it? He dared not frighten them with another display of wild talent. If Bell knew he could see the no-ships!

"Do it!" Odrade said. "You have the command. Use it."

". . . .I met an Honored Matre military commander on Gammu," Teg said. "Slack when it came to necessary details. I think they're overconfident. . . .Something drove those women back here. Duncan's right. They're looking for something and running away at the same time."

[08; 328-9]

A number of difficulties may be found in this passage. The legend of Teg's superlative abilities as a military commander begins to fray. He will rely on intelligence -- personal observations -- of conditions on Junction from a hundred years earlier. Surely no military commander would be comfortable with hundred-year-old intelligence, least of all Miles Teg. No compelling reason is given for the feint at Gammu. Feints in battle can be very useful, but in this novel the only persuasive "reason" is to accidentally rescue the Rabbi and the other Jews and so regain the Lampadas horde. To some degree this feint may be intended to load Junction down with refugees, but if so, this seems to be a stretch. "Holzmann" is a respelling of the original "Holtzman," which could either reflect an orthographic evolution (somewhat improbable as it is a proper name used to refer to technology still important millennia after its invention) or a continuity error.

Teg's plan for "englobement" recapitulates the strategy the Honored Matres had used around Lampadas, as Lucilla considered much earlier:

Strewing the escape lanes around Lampadas with deathtraps, the Foldspace perimeter seeded with small no-globes, each containing a field projector and a lasgun to fire on contact. When the laser hit the Holzmann generator in the no-globe, a chain reaction released the nuclear energy. Bzzz into the trap field and a devastating explosion spread silently across you. Costly but efficient! Enough such explosions and even a giant Guildship would become a crippled derelict in the void. Her ship's system of defensive analyses had penetrated the nature of the trap only when it was too late, but she had been lucky, she supposed.

[08; 41]

Herbert slyly concedes one of the great unspoken weaknesses of the Dune series: the fact that the lasgun/shield interaction would have been extremely destabilizing specifically for this reason: untraceable atomic explosions, costly in this case because of the necessity of placing them within no-globes, insanely cheap in the days before Paul Muad'Dib and prescient hunters⁵⁵. Later, Herbert tries to sweep this shortcoming under the rug by proposing a whole new (irrational) rationale for the dilemma:

Shields had dominated the Old Empire, he knew, because of that oddly important set of words called "Great Convention." Honorable people did not misuse weapons of their feudal society. If you dishonored the Convention, your peers turned against you with united violence. More than that, there had been the intangible, "Face," that some called "Pride."

[08; 390-1]

We'll ignore the possibilities afforded terrorists or dishonorable- or desperate-types and accept Miles Teg as a "military genius" and continue.

Duncan Idaho, as Miles Teg's Weapons Master, falls asleep and enters a hyperconscious dream state in which quantum leaps of comprehension occur to him of their own volition. Here Herbert seems to channel a future vision of the internet⁵⁶, complete with Duncan "scrolling" through pages of previously unanticipated data, with more than a hint of the 1999 film The Matrix thrown in for good measure. In part this scene probably reflects the well-known phenomenon in which someone who struggles consciously for the solution to a specific problem falls asleep and a solution wells up from a subconscious reservoir in dream. But it is rather striking and remarkable how closely Duncan's vision mimics a kind of trans-dimensional internet session, as he is obviously tapping in to unknown weapons systems from the Scattering⁵⁷:

He awoke and sat upright. Specifications for new devices! There it was in delicate detail, a way to miniaturize Holzmann generators. Two centimeters, no more. And much cheaper! How was that smuggled into my mind?

He slipped out of bed, not awakening Murbella, and groped his way to a robe. He heard her snuffle as he let himself out into the workroom.

Seating himself at his console, he copied the design from his mind and studied it. Perfect! Englobement for sure. He transmitted to Archives with a flag for Odrade and Bellonda.

With a sigh, he sat back and examined his design once more. It vanished in a return to his dream scroll. Am I still dreaming? No! He could feel the chair, touch the console, hear the field buzzing. Dreams do that.

. . . .Humans and other animals bred for attack scrolled past his eyes, hiding the console and its projection. Futars? How did Futars get in there? What do I know about Futars?

Disruptors replaced the animals. Weapons to cloud mental activity or interfere with life itself. Disruptors? I've never heard that name before.

[08; 358]

Once Teg and Duncan get their ducks in a row, Teg launches the attack on Gammu. Arriving through Foldspace at the proper system, a fleet of decoy ships is deployed against Gammu with heavy carriers moving into attack position. Watching this,

. . . .Teg became now what he thought of as "the instrument of my instruments." It was difficult to determine which commanded and which responded.

[08; 387]⁵⁸

In the ensuing battle over Gammu, Teg uses the exploding decoys as a way to conceal the fact that he sees enemy no-ships breaking formation and fleeing in panic. His "blink-comparator" prescience easily gives him the overwhelming advantage. On the ground Teg's soldiers provide the Honored Matres with a severe trouncing. The Rabbi and his wards choose this moment to reveal themselves, and at Murbella's orders they are rescued and brought aboard Teg's flagship.

Murbella receives them, including Rebecca, and the seven and a half million plus Reverend Mothers from the Lampadas horde that she carries as Shared Other Memory.

Now the action moves to Junction.

Odrade has proceeded to Junction, with an escort. She confers alone with Dama, and they broach the subject of biological warfare in the Honored Matres' past. The meeting continues for some time until Logno brings wine and succeeds in poisoning Dama, who dies.

"You will call me Great Honored Matre," Logno said. "And you will learn to thank me for it. She (pointing at the red heap in the balcony corner) intended to betray you and exterminate your people. I have other plans. I am not one to destroy a useful weapon at the moment of our greatest need."

[08; 411]

But Logno's pretty speech is only prelude to her own strategy for turning the tables. . . .Teg's forces attack Gammu and win the day. Assessing the situation, Logno confronts he prisoner, Odrade:

The new Spider Queen was revealed now as someone even stranger than Odrade had suspected. Logno left her console and came to within a pace of Odrade. "You have won this battle. We are your prisoners."

No orange in her eyes. Odrade swept her gaze around at the women who had been her guards. Blank expressions, clear eyes. Was this how they showed despair? It did not feel right. Logno and the others revealed no expected emotional responses.

Everything under wraps?

Events of the past hours should create emotional crisis. Logno gave no sign of it. Not a twitch of revealing nerve or muscle. Perhaps a casual concern and that was all.

[08; 419]

This certainly is out of character for the Honored Matres, who have fled from great forces from the Scattering, who have all but obliterated the Bene Gesserit.

In a high tower, Teg finds Odrade and her captive Honored Matres. He surveys the battle scene and senses something is terribly wrong.

. . . .[H]e recognized what had tugged at his awareness. Considering the fact they had stormed a well-manned defensive emplacement occupied by heavily armed defenders, the number of casualties down there was extremely small. He had seen nothing to explain this since entering the Citadel. Were they caught off-balance? Their losses in space were one thing -- his ability to see defender ships produced a devastating advantage. But this complex held prepared positions where defenders could have fallen back and made the assault more costly. Collapse of Honored Matre resistance had been abrupt and now it remained unexplained.

[08; 422]

Miles Teg immediately recognizes the danger -- the Honored Matres possess a weapon of unknown origin. Their "surrender" has been a feint, and they quickly achieve a reversal, deploying The Weapon -- one of the "disruptors" Duncan saw in his Universe Wide Web vision of weapons catalogues:

. . . .Honored Matre attack with the bloodless weapon had been swift and deadly, a typical viciousness that killed when killing no longer was required. . . .There had been no warning, only the troops dropping in wide lines -- a domino effect that left the survivors in shock. And Great Honored Matre obviously enjoyed the shock.

[08; 436]

Teg and Odrade are alive but taken prisoner, and Teg's soldiers are destroyed.

Under Logno, the Honored Matres have defeated the Bene Gesserit invasion of Junction.

13.02.06 The Honored Matres of Dur.

2009-08-05T00:29:00.002-07:00

13.02.06 The Honored Matres of Dur.

IN THE FINAL analysis, although they are the most openly powerful faction in both Heretics of Dune and Chapterhouse: Dune, we know the least about the Honored Matres.

The Honored Matres came to power out in the Scattering, descendants of Fish Speakers and Bene Gesserit. They were bureaucrats who rose up against a government and seized power. Lacking access to melange, they substitute another drug, an adrenalin analogue. They are therefore adrenalin addicts, the most dangerous form of human being Herbert can envision: tyrannical, insatiable terrorists, and he pushes their poison to its extreme. They are savage and lustful for power and control, a perfect storm of ferocity devouring everything in its path.

The Honored Matres remember Leto as Guldur, or the Great Guldur, or simply as Dur, and they manipulate his worship for their own aims. They seem to hail from a single planet, also called Dur. On Junction, Dama "could almost imagine she had never left Dur" [08; 236], and on Chapterhouse Murbella refers to the "dear Gods of Dur" [08; 252]. In Heretics of Dune Jafa Muzzafar introduces himself to Miles Teg as the "regional commander for the forces of Dur" [23; 398], although he later seems to imply a larger region with that name when he "explains" to Teg that his title of Field Marshal reflects "a revival of ancient titles in the Dur" [23; 400]. Later Muzzafar swears "by the Eternal Rock of Dur" [23; 401], and Murbella refers to the Holy Rock of Dur [23; 436]. Unfortunately, no one ever seems to get around to pumping Murbella for insight into these and ancillary matters.

Duncan Idaho may be correct when he tells Bellonda that "Honored Matres could be a relatively small group" [08; 247]. After all, the crux of Leto's Golden Path has been to insure the survival of humanity, largely by distributing people over so vast a region of the universe that no single force could bring them all to destruction. Considered thus, how likely is it that the Honored Matres have conquered even a small fraction of the Scattering? It is much more likely that, for all the terror they are able to inflict on the backwards Old Imperium, they are really more like neighborhood bullies who have been kicked out of their own turf and have come running back to the "old country."

The Golden Path was about saving humanity -- not about saving the Old Imperium. Yet Leto anticipated much that would happen, and left certain clues and artifacts to aid the Bene Gesserit and their allies in their time of need against the Honored Matres. Leto may have done this out of purely sentimental reasons. . . .or greater aspects of his plans are yet to be revealed.

There is no reason to believe the Honored Matres represent the worst that the Scattering has to offer. "The Scattering" is not a monolithic culture threatening to come barreling down on the Old Imperium. Innumerable other wonderful cultures must exist out there as well. Rather, it is safest to consider the Honored Matres as representatives of one culture -- possibly of only one planet -- out of populated worlds without end. . . .

Another example of the Absolute/Infinity Breach. We know almost nothing about the numerator -- the Honored Matres -- and much less than that about the denominator -- everything else in the Scattering. Any attempt at precise speculation about the fraction can only be wildly wrong.

One thing that is clear is that the Honored Matres have made or encountered some powerful enemies out in the Scattering, and some disaster involving a clash between these two forces drove them into the Old Imperium. The evidence is conflicting, but it is virtually certain that someone engineered Futars to hunt down Honored Matres. Somehow the Honored Matres acquired a weapon -- The Weapon (rather a lackluster name for a gizmo in a Herbert story) -- with which to fight back.

. . . .Only three hundred units of The Weapon survived the disaster. Each could be used only once, provided the Council (which held the Charge) agreed to arm them. Great Honored Matre, controlling The Weapon itself, had only half of that awful power. Weapon without Charge was merely a small black tube that could be held in the hand. With its Charge, it cut a brief swath of bloodless death across the arc of its limited range.

. . . .[T]he Ones of Many Faces, curse them through eternity, had caused the disaster. Them and their Futars! The ease with which all but that handful of The Weapon had been confiscated! Awesome powers. We must arm ourselves well before we return to that battle. Dama is right.

[08; 29]

(Note that Logno here equates the Ones of Many Faces with Handlers.)

There was no orderly retreat from Dur. It was a rout, Dama recalls, replete with Futars "and the harrowing flight back into the Old Empire" [08; 236].

Interesting. . . .Someone has chased them out (outside?) of the Scattering. . . .All the universe available to them, and they are pursued to the Old Imperium. Why go there? Or did their pursuers herd them in that direction? Later, a reawakened Miles Teg says: "Something drove those women back here. Duncan's right. They're looking for something and running away at the same time" [08; 329]. They may be pursuing a secret the Bene Gesserit possess that they can use in their struggle with the Enemies of Many Faces.

It is useful to consider the nature of the Futars and their Handlers a bit more closely.

The Futar squatted in its cage and a rumbling sound issued from its throat.

"Aren't they sweet when they purr?" Great Honored Matre obviously did not expect an answer.

The presence of the Futar puzzled Lucilla. Those things were supposed to hunt and kill Honored Matres. It was caged, though.

"Where did you capture it?" Lucilla asked.

"On Gammu." She did not see what she had revealed.

[08; 106]

This passage asserts the Bene Gesserit belief, or suspicion, that the original purpose of Futars was to hunt and kill Honored Matres. Murbella has no knowledge of Futars hunting and killing Honored Matres [08; 249], but this probably only reflects her status as an Honored Matre novice, or is an indication that she has been conditioned to have no knowledge of the nature of Futars, just as she has been conditioned to have no knowledge of Bene Gesserit Sisters in the history of the Honored Matres [08; 246]⁵³.

Much later, Miles Teg also considers the question:

. . . .He had warned them especially about Futars. The possibility that humanoid beasts might be allies could not be overlooked. Rebels who had helped ghola-Idaho escape from Gammu had insisted Futars were created to hunt and kill Honored Matres. Knowing the accounts of Dortujla and others, you could almost pity Honored Matres if this were true, except that no pity could be spared for those who never showed it to others.

[08; 387]⁵⁴

Dortujla reports to Odrade an aspect of Futar behavior not described previously that took place after the creature had devoured one of her Sisters:

". . . .Futars definitely are not human. Barely tamed wild animals."

"No Handlers?" Odrade asked.

"I saw none. The Futars did speak. They said, 'Eat!' before they ate and they jibed at Honored Matres around them. 'You hungry?' That sort of thing. More important was what happened after they ate. . . .A Futar came to the bars of its cage after their. . . .banquet? It looked at the Spider Queen and it screamed. I have never heard such a sound. Chilling! Every Honored Matre in that room froze and I swear to you they were terrified."

Sheeana touched Dortujla's arm. "A predator immobilizing its prey?"

"Undoubtedly. It had qualities of Voice. The Futars appeared surprised that it did not freeze me."

[08; 325]

The long-term plans of the Honored Matres may not include maintaining control over the Old Imperium. They may have begun exterminating the Bene Gesserit simply because they are a local nuisance, although there is something of value the Bene Gesserit possess that they seek. Their ultimate goal is acquisition of enough units of The Weapon (which the Ixians are laboring to duplicate [08; 30]) to return to the Scattering and defeat the Ones of Many Faces, but perhaps that is not all.

What do they find desirable in the Bene Gesserit? It is a most remarkable thing that, more than likely, has its origins in Herbert's research for The White Plague. Odrade, captured by Dama on Junction, begins to tease this information out of her with a bluff:

"The Sisterhood has three replacements for me." Odrade produced her most penetrating stare. "It is possible for us to weaken each other in ways that would destroy us both. . . .the hand that swatted us would fester, and eventually, sickness would consume you."

It could not be stated plainer without specific details.

"Impossible!" An orange glare.

"Do you think us unaware of how you were driven back here by your enemies? . . .We could leave you vulnerable to those who assail you, those who drove you into this cul de sac. . . ."

Dama's voice relapsed into soft Galach that Odrade had difficulty understanding. "So they have been to you. . . .and made their offer. What fools you are to trust the. . . ."

"I have not said we trust."

. . . .How firmly did Dama cling to the fantasy that her exile might end? And what was the force that had driven such power back to the Old Empire? Why here? Odrade dared not ask.

[08; 402-4]

The pattern becomes clearer shortly afterwards:

Once more, Dama spoke in her imperious manner.

Odrade listened. How odd that Spider Queen thought one of the most attractive things the Bene Gesserit could provide was immunity from new diseases.

Was that the form of attack that drove them here?

Her sincerity was naive. None of this tiresome periodic checking to see if you had acquired secret inhabitants in your flesh. Sometimes not so secret. Sometimes disgustingly perilous. But the Bene Gesserit could end all that and would be suitably rewarded.

[08; 409]

Some manner of infectious process may have been deployed against the Honored Matres -- a version of biological attack. This could account for both why they fled and why they chose the Old Imperium as their place of refuge: Ixians to copy The Weapon, Bene Gesserit to provide biological defense. . . .

After the battle on Junction begins and Logno assumes command of the Honored Matres, she escorts Odrade into the real nerve center of military operations.

Logno and all but one guard went to a console on Odrade's right. Pivoting on one foot, Odrade looked around. This was the real center. She studied it with care. Odd place. An aura of the sanitary. Treated with chemicals to make it clean. No bacterial or viral contaminants. No strangers in the blood. Everything debugged like a showcase for rare viands. And Dama showed interest in Bene Gesserit immunity to diseases. There was bacterial warfare in the Scattering.

[08; 417-8]

As important as this information is, the Mentat Duncan Idaho has earlier provided even more insight -- and perspective -- on the relative degree of threat that the Honored Matres represent in the long term.

"Episodes," he said. A word Odrade was fond of using.

"That's how we have to see what's happening to us. Little episodes. Even the worst-case assumption has to be screened against that background. The Scattering has a magnitude that dwarfs anything we do."

There! That demonstrated his value to the Sisters. It put Honored Matres in a better perspective. They were back here in the Old Empire. Fellow dwarves. He knew Odrade would see it. Bell would make her see it.

Somewhere out there in the Infinite Universe, a jury had brought in a verdict against Honored Matres. Law and its managers had not prevailed for the hunters. . . .

[08; 196]

Duncan sees the Honored Matres of Dur as nothing more than "fellow dwarves." The Scattering is much too vast to grasp, and Idaho has recognized this fact. Perilous as they are, the Honored Matres are a short-term, provincial problem.

The rest of the universe still awaits.

13.02.05 Buzzell Sacrifice.

2009-08-05T00:29:00.001-07:00

13.02.05 Buzzell Sacrifice.

POOR REVEREND MOTHER Dortujla. She was ahead of her time. . . .

. . . .[A]n aging Reverend Mother from a Bene Gesserit punishment planet appeared at Mother Superior's workroom shortly before the lunch break. Archives identified her: Name: Dortujla. Sent to special perdition years ago for an unforgivable infraction. Memory said it had been a love affair of some kind. Odrade did not ask for details. Some of them were displayed anyway. (Bellonda interfering again!) Emotional upheaval at the time of Dortujla's banishment, Odrade noted. Futile attempts by the lover to prevent separation.

Odrade recalled gossip about Dortujla's disgrace. "The Jessica crime!" Much valuable information arrived via gossip. Where the devil had Dortujla been posted? Never mind. Not important at the moment. More important: Why is she here? Why did she dare a trip that might lead the hunters to us?

[08; 154]

The punishment planet she is from is Buzzell, which has been located by the Honored Matres, but they are suspicious about it, as Dama and Logno discuss:

"That planet -- Buzzell," Great Honored Matre said. "Are you sure it's not defended?"

"We detect no defenses. Smugglers say it is not defended."

"But it is so rich in Soostones!"

"Here in the Old Empire, people seldom dare attack the witches."

[08; 29-30]

Odrade recalls the planet later, as well as the economic implications of soostone smuggling:

What was the name of her punishment planet?

The worktable's projector produced it: Buzzell.

That name brought an alertness to Odrade. Buzzell! Her fingers danced in the console, confirming memories. Buzzell: mostly ocean. Cold. Very cold. Hardscrabble islands, none bigger than a large no-ship. The Bene Gesserit once had considered Buzzell a punishment. Object lesson: "Careful, girl, or you'll be sent to Buzzell." Odrade recalled the other key then: soostones. . . .That was significant. By Bene Gesserit design, Dortujla had frequent dealings with smugglers. . . .

Smuggling. A major crime to Honored Matres and others who had not faced the fact of unenforceable laws. Foldspace had not changed it for smuggling, just made small intrusions easier if anything. Tiny no-ships. How small could you make one of them? A gap in Odrade's knowledge. Archives corrected it: "Diameter, meters 140."

[08; 156-7]

This passage is especially significant because of the question of Foldspace.

As discussed elsewhere (§13.01.13; see also §13.02.11 below), in order to avoid the predicaments of unacceptably slow interstellar travel, problematic physical issues associated with relativistic effects, and time travel paradoxes, Guild Steersmen-mediated interstellar travel requires that a discontinuity in spacetime be created between origin and destination. A form of hyperconsciousness is required to manage this in Herbert space. Accepting these conclusions, the phrase "Foldspace had not changed it for smuggling" used above is better read as "no-ships had not changed it for smuggling."

Odrade's reflections on the economic status of Buzzell continue:

Small enough, then. Soostones were a cargo with natural attraction. Foldspace was a critical economic barrier: How valuable a cargo compared to size and mass? You could spend many Solaris moving massive stuff. Soostones -- magnetic to smugglers. They had special interest to Honored Matres as well. Simple economics? Always a big market. As attractive to smugglers as melange now that the Guild was being so free with it. The Guild had always stockpiled with generations of spice in scattered storage and (doubtless) many hidden backups.

[08; 157]

These few paragraphs are terribly clumsy in their phraseology.

It might seem to defy logic to think that the Guild, of all factions, would now be free with melange in the marketplace in the aftermath of the destruction of Rakis, even given its undoubted massive stockpiles. . . .unless it is perhaps being wholly replaced by the Ixians. The market in Guild Steersmen is clearly drying up -- either for navigating space or for conducting prescient searches -- as both no-technology and Siona genetics proliferate. All the Guild has to offer, then, is its melange stockpiles, whose value has increased after the destruction of Rakis. A time for full merger and liquidation could be indicated.

Enough economics (although the motivations that can be guessed from these revelations is instructive). Of more pressing concern is the message that Reverend Mother and Mentat Dortujla brings to Chapterhouse.

A band of Futars and their Handlers (Dortujla suspects the Handlers may be Face Dancers, although the usual clues are absent) from the Scattering has located Buzzell. They seek an alliance with the Reverend Mothers against the Honored Matres who, they warn, possess a secret weapon.

. . . .Handlers and their Futars, she said, were disturbed by something they would not reveal. Dortujla had been wise not to attempt Bene Gesserit persuasives. No telling how people from the Scattering might react. But what disturbed them?

"Some threat other than Honored Matres," Dortujla suggested. She would not venture more but the possibility was there and had to be considered.

[08; 158]

This is one of the hints in Chapterhouse: Dune that the Honored Matres have fled the Scattering from a greater enemy, but also that this putative enemy is not the Futars and their putative Face Dancer Handlers⁵¹ as the Honored Matres believe (see §13.02.06). Odrade had earlier raised the possibility in more or less groundless speculation [08; 132].

The two agree that Buzzell is being watched by Honored Matres. Dortujla projects that the Honored Matres have not yet invaded because they want the planet as a base of their own. She believes they will bring in amphibious slaves to harvest the soostones -- something that has not yet been seen in the Old Imperium, another creature to be imported from the Scattering. Whether this is true, and whether these creatures would have been seen in Dune 7, is unknown⁵².

Odrade decides to dangle Dortujla as bait before the Honored Matres. Dortujla will let it be known that she has been banished and that Odrade is convinced that she must surrender the Bene Gesserit to the Honored Matres. Odrade hopes that Dortujla can steer the Honored Matres into selecting Junction as a site for a parley.

Much later, Dama has a report on Buzzell, which she misinterprets:

. . . .Logno's report was interesting. So the old witch had returned to Buzzell. And she was angry, too. Excellent. Obviously, she knew she was being watched and she had visited her supreme witch to ask for removal from Buzzell, for sanctuary. And she had been refused.

They don't care that we destroy their limbs just as long as the central body remains hidden.

Speaking over her shoulder to Logno, Dama said: "Bring that old witch to me. And all of her attendants."

As Logno turned to obey, Dama added: "And begin starving some Futars. I want them hungry."

[08; 236-7]

The Honored Matres have snapped the bait. Then, after a long time of uneasy waiting, Dortujla finally returns to Chapterhouse. She has been tortured by the Honored Matres and is exhausted and in dreadful physical condition.

"I have done as you ordered, Mother Superior. . . .They will meet with you on Junction. They think the place is their own idea and your Spider Queen is there! . . .They want one hundred Standard days counting from just about now. I can be more precise if you want."

"Why so long?" Odrade asked.

"My opinion? They will use the time to reinforce their defenses on Junction. . . ."

"They expect me to bring submission of the Bene Gesserit?" Odrade's voice had never been colder. Dortujla's words raised a specter of tragedy.

"That was the inducement."

[08; 323-4]

Both sides have worked out their strategies and developed their most promising pieces to the best of their ability. It is time to close ranks.

Battle must be joined.

13.02.04 Lampadas Captured.

2009-08-05T00:28:00.004-07:00

13.02.04 Lampadas Captured.

THE ARITHMETIC OF genealogy and Other Memory was discussed previously (see §11.03.01). After only 19 generations, a Reverend Mother can count over half a million female ancestors, with another million or so added on the next generation back, and so on. . . .Very rapidly, more distant generations must begin to experience overlap and convergence among Reverend Mothers.

These numbers are further amplified by the addition of Shared Other Memory, especially if Shared Ones can be passed down along with one's own genetic compilation. At what point do a few trillion or so more Other Memory datasets become redundant?

The bottlenecks in exploiting Other Memory involve questions of data mining efficiency and the fidelity of the Other Memory records. Other Memory is not a full-on experience. Reverend Mothers must select an Other Memory channel to access, or in time of need an Other Memory voice may rise above the din to claim the spotlight. Simulflow increases the number of experiences a Reverend Mother can undergo and successfully integrate in real time, but it appears to be a short-term phenomenon that allows only two parallel conduits of information to be correctly and consciously processed and interpreted.

Lucilla, the Reverend Mother who failed to imprint Duncan Idaho in Heretics of Dune, and Burzmali, Miles Teg's handpicked successor in that novel, were both dispatched to the Bene Gesserit teaching planet of Lampadas after the destruction of Rakis. Word comes secretly to Chapterhouse that the Honored Matres have destroyed Lampadas. There are no survivors.

But the report is premature. At least one survivor⁴⁵ has come through Lampadas. It is Lucilla, who manages to bring her crippled no-ship to Gammu.

Now, seeming to come out of nowhere, Frank Herbert introduces a surprising new (and very old) force into the Dune saga: Judaism.

Lucilla dropped the crystal into its receptacle with a trembling hand and pulled the hood over her head. Immediately, words formed in her mind, an oral sense of extremely old accents clipped for recognition: "The people to whom your attention has been called are the Jews. They made a defensive decision eons ago. The solution to recurrent pogroms was to vanish from public view. Space travel made this not only possible but attractive. They hid on countless planets -- their own Scattering -- and they probably have planets where only their people live. This does not mean they have abandoned age-old practices in which they excelled out of survival necessity. The old religion is sure to persist even though somewhat altered. It is probable that a rabbi from ancient times would not find himself out of place behind the Sabbath menorah of a Jewish household in your age. But their secrecy is such that you could work a lifetime beside a Jew and never suspect. They call it 'Complete Cover,' although they know its dangers."

[08; 42-3]

In its way, the "Complete Cover" of the Jews is very similar to what the Sufis achieved in the guise of the Bene Tleilaxu.

On Gammu, Lucilla secretly makes contact with the Rabbi of the concealed Jews. To her dismay, she discovers that the Guild is searching Gammu for her.

"There is a Guild Navigator on Gammu helping the search for you," he said. "It is one of the Edrics, very powerful, I am told."

"I have Siona blood. He cannot see me."

"Nor me nor any of my people and for the same reason. We Jews adjust to many necessities, you know."

"This Edric is a gesture," she said. "He can do little."

"But they have brought him. I'm afraid there is no way we can get you safely off the planet."

[08; 46]⁴⁶

In order to formulate a solution to this unfortunate plight, Lucilla is made privy to unsuspected aspects of the Jewish culture on Gammu.

The Rabbi returned to the room's only door and opened it. An older woman in a long brown gown stood there. She stepped in at the Rabbi's beckoning gesture. Hair the color of old driftwood neatly bound in a bun at the back of her head. Face pinched in and wrinkled, dark as a dried almond. The eyes, though! Total blue! And that steely hardness within them. . . .

"This is Rebecca, one of our people," the Rabbi said. "As I am sure you can see, she has done a dangerous thing."

"The Agony," Lucilla whispered.

"She did it long ago and she serves us well. Now, she will serve you."

[08; 50]

The Jews will save Lucilla's Other Memory archive for the Bene Gesserit, but Lucilla herself they will turn over to her hunters.

The fates of Rebecca and Lucilla drift in a cumbersome part of the novel, briefly threatening to lapse into the chaos of Heretics of Dune. Herbert faced two plotting problems here -- the separate interactions between these two characters (Lucilla and Rebecca) and the Great Honored Matre (also known as the Spider Queen, also known as Dama). Rebecca must be released by Dama and Lucilla must be slain by her -- any other outcome would trivialize the significance of the Lampadas affair and the eventual transfer of the Lampadas Other Memory stores to the Bene Gesserit on Chapterhouse. Unfortunately, Herbert's treatment of these characters by Dama is unconvincing, and teeters on the brink of becoming soporific.

First comes Rebecca's ordeal, but it is over preposterously quickly. Dama returns her to Gammu on the pretext of denying her the blessings of remaining with the Honored Matres on Junction, but in fact to dangle as bait in front of the Bene Gesserit. Rebecca will be watched -- but not very carefully.

Before killing Lucilla off, Herbert manages to milk the exchange between Dama and her for all it is worth -- in this case, largely the exploration of philosophical arguments that are not truly related to the course of the novel. This hardly seems in keeping with Dama's character, but Herbert is undaunted.

Some relevant insight does seep through.

"It's your science we want, witch!" She pitched her voice lower. "Let us be reasonable. With your help we could achieve utopia. . . ."

"You think science holds the keys to utopia?"

"And better organization for our affairs."

Remember: Bureaucracy elevates conformity. . . .Make that elevates "fatal stupidity" to the status of religion.

"Paradox, Great Honored Matre. Science must be innovative. It brings change. That's why science and bureaucracy fight a constant war."

Does she know her roots?

"But think of the power! Think of what you could control!" She doesn't know.

Honored Matre assumptions about control fascinated Lucilla. You controlled your universe; you did not balance with it. You looked outward, never inward. You did not train yourself to sense your own subtle responses, you produced muscles (forces, powers) to overcome everything you defined as an obstacle. Were these women blind?

[08; 111]

All in keeping with the precondition of bureaucrats becoming ever more conservative, viewing all imagination and creativity as direct threats to their entrenched power.

But most of the bromidic "conversation" between Lucilla and Dama is merely preoccupation with political theory and governance and the virtues and limitations of democracy -- areas Herbert has previously explored⁴⁷ -- although perhaps never so tediously.

"Why do you say you witches have no government?"

". . . .People have politics. I told you that yesterday. Politics: the art of appearing candid and completely open while concealing as much as possible."

[08; 165]

As good a definition of politics as any. Odrade continues:

"You believe all of this conforms to instincts going back to tribal days and beyond. Chiefs and Elders. Mystery Mother and Council. And before that, the Strong Man (or Woman) who saw to it that everyone was fed, that all were guarded by fire at the cave's mouth."

[08; 165]

This is in keeping with Herbert's theory of the "Cave Mother" spelled out in 1966's "The Primitives."

Great Honored Matre turned her orange gaze toward Lucilla. "What about bureaucrats?"

"They have no room to maneuver because that's the way their superiors grow fat. If you don't see the difference between regulation and law, both have the force of law."

"I see no difference." She doesn't know what she reveals.

"Laws convey the myth of enforced change. A bright new future will come because of this law or that one. Laws enforce the future. Regulations are believed to enforce the past."

[08; 166]

In essence Herbert continues to hammer home his warnings about the suppressive nature of hierarchical structures. Honored Matres view strict bureaucracy as a force for rigid control of the populace; Bene Gesserit view the same as confinement of a people to the past and leaving them unprepared for the wonders that the futures hold. The only surprising thing here is that the Honored Matres continue to humor Lucilla's ramblings for so long, as they offer nothing of interest to her captors.

This conversation proceeds apace for some time with only two goals: to provide Herbert with a soapbox for some of his pet political theories, and to set up Lucilla for the coup de grâce. In keeping with some of the thinking from the abandoned Looking for America project -- and doubtless still wanting to get those ideas out before the public -- Herbert says:

"You said you were bureaucrats who rebelled. You know the flaw. A top-heavy bureaucracy the electorate cannot touch always expands to the system's limits of energy. Steal it from the aged, from the retired, from anyone. Especially from those we once called middle class because that's where most of the energy originates. . . .Other Memory tells us the flaws of bureaucracy. I presume you have some form of civil service for the 'lower orders.'"

"We take care of our own." That's a nasty echo.

"Then you know how that dilutes the vote. Chief symptom: People don't vote. Instinct tells them it's useless."

"Democracy is a stupid idea anyway!"

"We agree. It's demagogue-prone. That's a disease to which electoral systems are vulnerable. Yet demagogues are easy to identify. They gesture a lot and speak with pulpit rhythms, using words that ring of religious fervor and god-fearing sincerity."

[08; 169]

From the context it's unclear precisely why Lucilla considers "We take care of our own" to be a "nasty echo". . . .but Jenny Sorge used the same words when speaking to Gilbert Dasein about failed Santarogans. . . .

Herbert rants a bit more about the problems of democracy in principle.

"So you know how to make a democracy do whatever you want." A gloating expression.

"The technique is quite subtle but easy. You create a system where most people are dissatisfied, vaguely or deeply. . . .This builds up widespread feelings of vindictive anger. Then you supply targets for that anger as you need them."

"A diversionary tactic."

"I prefer to think of it as distraction. Don't give them time to question. Bury your mistakes in more laws. You traffic in illusion. Bullring tactics. . . .Wave the pretty cape. They'll charge it and be confused when there's no matador behind the thing. That dulls the electorate just as it dulls the bull. Fewer people use their vote intelligently next time. . . .Then you rail against the apathetic electorate. Make them feel guilty. Keep them dull. Feed them. Amuse them. Don't overdo it!"

". . . .Don't you let the bull get an occasional matador?"

"Of course. Thump! Got that one! Then you wait for the laughter to subside."

[08; 170-1]

A cynical and reasonably accurate portrayal of democracy America-style. In order to retain democracy, Herbert proposes an autonomous jury system acting independent of any limitation of the law:

"They can arrive at any decision they desire, the way a jury should function. The law be damned!"

"That's a very disturbing idea." She's disturbed all right. Look at how dull her eyes are.

"The first rule of our democracy: no laws restricting juries. Such laws are stupid. It's astonishing how stupid humans can be when acting in small, self-serving groups."

[08; 171]

Dama kills Lucilla at the end of this long and looping chapter. It has been a pretext for Herbert to expound upon his theories of civics -- interesting itself, but as this conversation incites no detectable alteration in Honored Matre thinking or action for the remainder of the novel, this episode emerges as a long-winded trip to nowhere, a distraction from the story Herbert is telling. Also, the idea that Dama murders Lucilla because she finds her ideas of democracy and unfettered juries objectionable is hard to swallow. The reader's faith in the author wavers. But it is never strained to the point found in Heretics of Dune.

Quite suggestively, during a quiet moment later, Herbert lets Dama contemplate the death of Lucilla:

The tyranny of the minority cloaked in the mask of the majority.

That was what the witch Lucilla had recognized. No way to let her live after discovering she knew how to manipulate the masses. The witch nests would have to be found and burned. Lucilla's perceptiveness clearly was not an isolated example. Her actions betrayed the workings of a school. They taught this thing! Fools! You had to manage reality or things really got out of control.

[08; 237-8]

This suggests that the Honored Matres plan to consolidate their hold over the Old Imperium using the tools that Herbert views as most dangerous in American democracy. Herbert in effect uses the Honored Matres as an allegory in lieu of a political diatribe about the United States government that he never wrote.

The Honored Matres had determined to keep a watch on Rebecca, but for some unexplained reason they lash out on Gammu. Rebecca, the Rabbi, and others from the Jewish community take refuge in a small no-chamber, where they remain secreted for much of the novel, reminiscent of Teg, Duncan and Lucilla in the Harkonnen no-globe in Heretics of Dune. Of course the no-chamber is redundant in this case, as the Rabbi had previously told Lucilla that the Jews of Gammu carry the Siona gene, but no matter⁴⁸.

As a lucky surprise (or Herbert's real reason for Teg's diversionary strike against Gammu, depending on how you think about these things), the Rabbi and his wards are rescued.

"In the name of the Bene Gesserit and our debt to you, I welcome you and give you sanctuary," Murbella said. . . .

The woman curtsied to Murbella. "I am called Rebecca. And I am filled with joy to be with you. The Rabbi thinks I am a silly goose but I have a golden egg for I carry Lampadas: seven million six hundred twenty-two thousand and fourteen Reverend Mothers and they are rightfully yours."

[08; 394]

An impressive boon. . . .unless you consider too closely the math and the degree of overlap; still, seven and a half million Shared Other Memory personas suggests a substantial number of non-overlapping recent-generation lifetimes. This Other Memory will be Shared all around by the Bene Gesserit prior to launching their attack on Junction, as the Reverend Mothers rush headlong into becoming one enormous, extended network of Shared lifetimes of experience.

With respect to the Rabbi and the Jews in "Complete Cover," two questions are worth considering.

The first: does some connection exist between Leto's use of the word arafel and the introduction of the Jews in Chapterhouse: Dune? In his 1988 book Frank Herbert, William Touponce opines:

In the first draft of the God Emperor, at CSF⁴⁹, Siona tells Duncan that arafel means "the cloud darkness out of which the ten commandments were uttered," and indeed arafel is the regular biblical Hebrew word for "cloud," used in the book of Exodus. By saying that the Ixians cannot create arafel, he may mean just the capacity to hide from predators, as God hides in the dark cloud on Mount Sinai. But the idea of a commanding voice is also present here, as is the power of Infinity. Darwi Odrade, a distant descendant of Siona and a Bene Gesserit, finds part of Leto's spice hoard in Heretics of Dune; it has been hidden from predators for millennia. The key to finding the hoard is the word arafel etched in stone, and inside on the walls of the sietch are written Leto's commandments to the latter-day Bene Gesserit. He even predicts that a Bene Gesserit sister will one day read his words, probably because only the Sisterhood will at that time have any knowledge of the language in which he writes. This is a good example of how Herbert deliberately created secrets in the narrative, which resist our easy and orderly comprehension of it, introducing a measure of chaos into it. . . .

[55; 129]

An alternative to Touponce's theory is that Leto foresaw Odrade herself discovering his hoard, which was deliberately left so the Bene Gesserit could jump-start the spice cycle on Chapterhouse after seeing to the destruction of Rakis. According to this theory, Leto also foresaw the use of the Harkonnen no-globe by Teg, Duncan and Lucilla on Gammu, and in fact almost certainly was involved in insuring its concealment there over the ages. Leto's "commandments" written on the walls and steps of the secret chamber in Sietch Tabr primed Odrade with the necessary clues to assure survival of the Bene Gesserit. Concerning the Ixians, Leto suggests that their killing machines will not exterminate humanity, whether or not they will still one day attack: the Ixians -- whether through deliberate acts or accident -- will not be able to play God in this way, or to inscribe the fate of humanity.

But the bigger question remains: does Herbert's use of the Hebrew word arafel suggest a more profound role for the Jews in Dune 7 than is evident in Chapterhouse: Dune, or is this a red herring? No answer is obvious, but the question is intriguing.

The second unvoiced question: what is the relationship between the Jews and the Bene Tleilaxu?

The Jews, Herbert tells us, headed for space as soon as they could, to preserve their numbers from further pogroms (tensions in the Middle East between the state of Israel and all her neighbors were acute in the mid-1980s when Herbert wrote this novel⁵⁰). Furthermore, Herbert has revealed in no uncertain terms that the Bene Tleilaxu are radical Islamists bent on complete hegemony: all the powindah in the universe will convert or die. The parallel in concealment over the millennia between the Bene Tleilaxu and the Jews has already been noted. And at the end of Chapterhouse: Dune we find Scytale for the Bene Tleilaxu and the Rabbi and his small group for the Jews both aboard the same no-ship and lost among the Scattering.

Herbert has, it would seem, set the stage for a final showdown with truly ancient roots.