“I’ll send rescue teams.” Gilbertus locked away the robot core, then burst out of his office, sounding the alarm.

THE SANGROVE BRANCHES were sharp, the curved roots like knobby knees, and the bark smooth and slippery, but Anna wove her way along like a human darning needle. It was challenging and gratifying. She didn’t miss a step.

Bugs swarmed around her, some biting, others just flying in her face. Subconsciously, she counted and categorized the insects; she watched their drunken paths in the air and computed imaginary flight patterns for them. The bugs dipped and dodged aimlessly.

She worked her way through the thickets, ducking under branches, parting hairy strands of moss that dangled from above. These swamps reminded her of the fogwood tree back at the palace, Anna’s beloved sanctuary — a place where only she could go. She used her mind as she touched the sangrove roots and trunks, but these swamp trees were deaf and stupid; they didn’t respond to her thoughts as the special fogwood did.

She made her way through the thick network of roots, carefully balancing above the standing water, memorizing each step she took as well as every false path and dead end. It was simple enough to assemble her explorations into a map in her mind. When she finished, she would retrace her way to the Mentat School, and from then on she could move without additional complications.

She slipped on a smear of moss, but caught herself and breathed in a careful rhythm to restore her calm. The water beneath the sangrove roots wasn’t deep, but she saw flashes of silver like swimming shards of glass. The channels were infested by razorjaws that would devour anything that fell into the water. When Anna’s movements disturbed a nest of amphibious hoppers that leaped for other branches, some of them plopped into the water — which became a boiling fury as razorjaws devoured them.

Another person might have been frightened by the danger, but Anna wasn’t worried. As long as she didn’t fall from the roots, she had nothing to fear; therefore, she decided not to fall.

The reassuring voice of her friend reappeared in her ear. “Anna, it’s time for you to return to the Mentat School.”

“Not yet. I’m still exploring.”

“I admire that you are a seeker of knowledge.” The voice sounded like Hirondo, but she had eventually realized it wasn’t truly him. This was her secret friend on Lampadas, someone much more faithful than Hirondo. “The Headmaster is concerned about you, Anna. The Mentats are searching now. They’re coming close — you’ll hear their voices soon. Respond to them. Help them find you.”

She listened. For a moment, she could discern nothing more than the thrum of insects and faint ripples in the water, but then she heard distant shouts as Mentats worked their way through the sangroves.

“They shouldn’t come out here,” she said. “It’s dangerous for them.”

“They believe it’s also dangerous for you.”

“Then tell them I’m all right,” she said.

The voice chuckled in a strange way. “I can’t talk to anyone else the way I talk with you. And I … worry about you being alone here.”

The shouts grew louder. Anna realized that the searchers were risking their lives to rescue her, even though she hadn’t asked them to. She didn’t want them to die. She let out a sigh. “You’re right. Roderick always told me to think of other people. I’m not a selfish person.”

“No, you’re not,” the voice agreed, and that made her feel good.

Remembering the precise safe path to take, avoiding her previous missteps and false starts, Anna darted through the sangroves, working her way back to muddy but more solid ground, where Mentat searchers could find her.

When they spotted her, they pushed forward with a surge of energy. One trainee slipped on a sangrove root, but nearby Mentats pulled him back up as the razorjaws swirled, snapping at their missed meal.

“I am here,” Anna called as she made her way to the searchers, moving with more grace than they did. “I am safe.”

Inside her ear, the friendly voice said, “And I intend to keep you safe for a long time.”

Chapter 39 (Every grain of sand in the desert is different)

On his first arrival at the EsconTran spacedocks, fully trained for his new mission, in disguise and with a false ID, Taref quickly found employment as an interim worker on a planet called Junction Alpha. He had never heard of it before. Junction Alpha was not one of the worlds that evoked exotic images, such as Salusa Secundus did, or the glittering former machine stronghold of Corrin … or Poritrin, from which the Zensunni had escaped their slavery. There was no grandeur on Junction Alpha, just noise, smells, hard work, and no more satisfaction than he’d felt on Arrakis. Compared to his dreams, the young man found the rest of the Imperium rather disappointing. Junction Alpha was just a different kind of desert.

With his new background from Venport Holdings, Taref understood just how much wealth the spice operations generated — and by rights that wealth should belong to the free people of the desert, rather than to some offworld company. Instead, the Freemen chose to live like beetles under rocks, casting their gazes backward and not even trying to see the path ahead.

Taref and his friends had grown up cocky and aloof. They summoned sandworms to ride across the desert and returned to the sietch whenever they felt like it, surviving on their own, sabotaging the intrusive spice harvesters whenever possible. They had thought themselves wise in the ways of life — until the VenHold Mentat made his intriguing offer.…

At least now, each new planet Taref visited — even the dirty, noisy, industrial worlds — showed him how ignorant and naïve he had been all his life. In the desert, he had believed he knew everything important, but upon leaving Arrakis he had been overwhelmed by the breadth of subjects about which he knew nothing. He could never learn them all, even if he spent a lifetime trying. The horizon of wisdom was far, far beyond his reach.

At Junction Alpha, he had worked in the shipyards, keeping his eyes open for the right opportunity, as Draigo had instructed him. His first contract sabotage job had been the most difficult — not mechanically or technically, but because he was nervous, convinced that someone would realize his job skills were minimal. The entire Escon company was in turmoil, however. People whispered whenever ships disappeared … and EsconTran ships disappeared far too often.

Junction Alpha was a stopping-over planet, and many of the through-passengers were Butlerians. Taref had learned that their legless leader drove them into wild rampages. According to Josef Venport’s vehement speech, Manford Torondo was the greatest enemy of civilization, the most dangerous man alive. Any VenHold operative had unofficial instructions to kill him on sight, should the opportunity arise.

On Junction Alpha, Taref had altered the fuel flow in a large cargo ship and adjusted the feedback loop on a passenger craft filled with Butlerian pilgrims. The first vessel flew off and vanished somewhere in deep space. The pilgrim transport exploded in-system moments before the engines folded space. EsconTran couldn’t hide that loss, and it was a dramatic embarrassment for the company. Since little wreckage remained, no investigator could determine that sabotage was the cause.

Taref had seen some of those fanatics board the ships, and he knew their bodies were now scattered across space. His sabotage was no longer theoretical, and a ship full of passengers had died because of his activities. He decided it wasn’t his place to question.