Children of Dune

Leto and Ghanima awake in their separate quarters with a keen awareness of each other’s presence. The day marks a visit from Jessica Atreides, their grandmother, who had left Arrakis and returned to Caladan after Paul’s abdication. Leto and Ghanima suspect that Alia is exhibiting signs of Abomination, and they ponder whether Jessica will detect the same warning signs in her daughter.

The chapter explains how Leto, Ghanima, and Alia are considered “pre-born” (13) due to their unique genetic makeup and exposure to spice while in the womb. Spice, a natural resource found only on Arrakis and produced by giant sandworms, is the most valuable commodity in the universe due to its potent properties to slow down aging and heighten cognition. Because Jessica and Chani consumed large quantities of spice while pregnant, the pre-borns acquired genetic memories before they were able to develop their own independent psyches, making them susceptible to possession by their ancestors. Although Leto and Ghanima physically appear as nine-year-old children, they are a composite of a multitude of ancestral personas.

The twins avoid the spice trance to deter falling to Abomination, believing Alia’s excessive consumption of spice has made her more vulnerable to her ancestors’ influence and control. After Leto recognizes in Alia’s face the clear markers of their ancestor and brutal enemy, Vladimir Harkonnen, he refers to his aunt as a “victim” (18). The twins also wonder if the mysterious dissenter known as The Preacher is their missing father, Paul.

Alia is suspicious of Jessica’s visit and admits that she both loves and hates her mother for her condition as a pre-born. Jessica is a member of the Bene Gesserit, a secretive sisterhood with powerful political influence. She had once rebelled against the Bene Gesserit’s millennia-long breeding program to produce a Kwisatz Haderach, an all-prescient super being. Jessica had disobeyed their orders and produced the Kwisatz Haderach a generation earlier when she gave birth to Paul. However, with the birth of Alia, she produced its antithesis, a child of Abomination at the mercy of multiple consciousnesses. Alia fears Jessica’s return to Arrakis is an attempt to gain control over the twins and their valuable genetic material. Craving her brother’s ability to portend the future, Alia attempts to attain Paul’s level of prescience by consuming spice in high doses, but her efforts only make her more susceptible to Abomination.

On the planet Salusa Secundis, a man trains two Laza tigers to attack children who resemble Ghanima and Leto. The man controls the animals with a remote that communicates with stimulators transplanted in the tigers’ brains. At his command, the tigers swiftly kill the children, and the attack is recorded and transmitted to the Capitol where Farad’n, the grandson of the deposed Emperor Shaddam IV, lives. The man fantasizes about the various promotions he will earn when the Atreides twins are killed and Farad’n of House Corrino regains the throne.

Jessica arrives in Arrakis and somberly remembers her first visit to the planet with the late Duke Leto Atreides and their son Paul 20 years earlier. Gurney Halleck, the former Warmaster of House Atreides, accompanies her and is rumored to be her lover. Jessica derides the imposing religious structures built around Paul’s godhead, which Alia exploits. Knowing the symbolic power she holds as the mother of the messiah, Jessica raises her hands in a rehearsed religious blessing and scans the crowds for areas where people are slow to kneel or reluctant to demonstrate their faith. Gurney quickly descends with his forces to apprehend the nonbelievers. Alia disapproves of the tactic, but Jessica and Stilgar argue that they need to protect the twins from harm and interrogate the insurgents.

Jessica immediately recognizes Abomination in Alia’s face and worries for the twins’ welfare. Alia feels relief that her mother has detected her condition, and that the two no longer hold any secrets. Jessica meets with Irulan, the daughter of Emperor Shaddam IV, whom Paul married to ensure political stability. Irulan is a former Bene Gesserit like Jessica. Despite being his wife in name only, she proves to be a trustworthy ally who loved Paul. Jessica also meets the priest Javid and finds him repellent. She recognizes that his devotion to her son stems more from greed and power than spirituality.

The twins await their grandmother at their home in Sietch Tabr, the community that adopted Paul and Jessica when they first joined the Fremen. Once a dry desert dwelling, Tabr is now surrounded by plants and water sources. Leto sings an ancient Fremen song about the cycles of death, decay, and renewal. He admits to Ghanima that he has begun to show signs of prescience and Abomination, and he struggles to contain the multitudes of ancestral voices clamoring in his head.

Leto learns from his ancestral memories that Arrakis was once a wet planet. Sandtrout, the larval stage of the giant sandworm, arrived on the planet during prehistoric times. The creatures transformed the lush biome by encysting the water and creating the desert conditions for their metamorphic maturation. Ghanima and Leto recall a childhood game of coaxing the sandtrout to form a glove over their bare hands. They comment that they have seen fewer sandtrout since the terraforming project and realize that, in turning the planet green, they are endangering the sandtrout—and therefore spice. Leto tells Ghanima he has visions of wearing armor and running across the dunes. He believes he must find The Preacher in the ancient sietch of Jacarutu, deep in the desert, to discover their meaning. He does not know if the mysterious man is his father, but he believes he understands Paul now more than ever.

Gurney Halleck and Jessica communicate using hand signals to prevent Alia’s spies from eavesdropping. Gurney informs her that the insurgents he interrogated spoke of Jacarutu, the legendary land where outcast Fremen live. Jessica instructs him to contact his smuggler informants to locate the mythic place. She also tells him her plans to enlist Javid to their side. She believes Javid hates the Atreideses and is conspiring against Alia.

Rumors that The Preacher is Paul Muad’Dib circulate around Arrakis. The Preacher is blind like Paul, who lost his vision from a stone burner bomb during a rebel attack. Blindness is rare among the Fremen because ancient customs condemn the blind to die in the desert. Guided by a young boy named Assan Tariq, The Preacher walks to Alia’s Temple and observes through his senses the commodification of Muad’Dib’s religion and the changing Fremen culture. Vendors peddle relics purportedly touched by Muad’Dib. Some Fremen even wear clothes in the decorative style of the innovative stillsuit that once ensured Fremen survival, while pilgrims praising Muad’Dib fill the streets alongside “fat, water-rich faces” (59) and devout worshippers of Paul and Alia, known as “Mahdi Spirit Cultists” (58). The Preacher shouts at the crowd and chastises them for their idolatry and deification of Muad’Dib.

Back on the planet Salusa Secundis, Princess Wensicia Corrino watches the footage of the Laza tigers devouring the children and registers her approval. She is the daughter of the late Emperor Shaddam IV and Irulan’s sister. Wensicia plans to assassinate the Atreides twins and place her son Farad’n, the next rightful heir, on the throne. She instructs Tyekanik, her military aide, to send identical cloaks worn by the victims to the Atreides twins as a gift. She calculates that the only way she can gain the Fremen’s support for House Corrino is for Farad’n to convert to the Mahdi religion and worship Muad’Dib. She also reveals that Javid is her accomplice and will help her undermine Alia’s authority.

Jessica and Ghanima hold a private meeting at Sietch Tabr, and they confirm that Alia has fallen to Abomination. Ghanima reveals that Leto has confessed to having prescient visions and struggles to keep his ancestral memories at bay. She also acknowledges that, despite Jessica’s claim that she loves her grandchildren, she will kill them if they become possessed. Jessica is certain that Ghanima is safe from Abomination and blames herself for Alia’s condition. She approves of Leto’s decision to find Jacarutu—even though Ghanima fears this is exactly what Alia wants—because The Preacher may be her son, Paul. Privately, she believes she must separate Leto from Ghanima to have him tested for Abomination, as the Bene Gesserits have instructed.

Alia recalls her struggles as a child to hold back the throng of ancestral voices in her head. When she became regent, she married the ghola Duncan Idaho, a genetic replicant of the original swordmaster for House Atreides who was killed in the first book, Dune. With Jessica away in Caladan and the twins under her legal custody, Alia sought counsel from her ancestors, who were eager to possess her consciousness. Pressured, Alia fell under Baron Vladimir Harkonnen’s influence. The Baron was the main antagonist in Dune and responsible for tyrannizing the Fremen and murdering Alia’s father, Duke Leto I. At the end of Dune, Alia acknowledges the secret identity of the Baron as her maternal grandfather and kills him.

Alia thinks about the sandtrout and analogizes how their ability to encapsulate water is like the protective voices in her head who shore up the ego-memories that wish to destroy her. She feels guilty over her hasty decision to execute a man and begins to doubt her judgment. The voices taunt her to consume more spice, despite her inability to achieve prescience through the spice trance. Alia succumbs to the Baron when he promises to silence the other voices in her head and not take over her entire consciousness. Preying on her fears and insecurities, he tells her that he will counsel her in politics, and that history will remember her and not her brother. Alia follows his instructions to seduce Javid to find out if he is loyal to her.

Assan Tariq, The Preacher’s 14-year-old guide, undergoes a “test of manhood” (96) and kills six men who have trespassed in the secret sietch of Shuloch. Assan’s father, Muriz, explains that his son will one day serve in his place as judge and must learn to act decisively as tradition dictates. Muriz confirms the existence of Jacarutu, the legendary domain of the Cast Out, and the execution marks Assan’s entry into their ranks. The Cast Out were originally an exiled community who had killed their fellow Fremen to steal their bodies’ water. After the execution, Muriz advises Assan not to the tell The Preacher.