Heretics of Dune is a Science Fiction novel by Frank Herbert, fifth in a series of six novels.
5,000 years have passed since Leto's reign; humanity is firmly on the Golden Path. By crushing the aspirations of humans for 3,500 years, Leto caused the Scattering, an explosion of humanity into the rest of galaxy upon his death. Now some of those who went out into the universe are coming back, bent on conquest, and only the Bene Gesserit perceive the Golden Path, and are faced with a choice: keep to their traditional role of hidden manipulators, quietly easing tensions and goading human progress, while struggling for their own survival; or embrace the Golden Path and push humanity onward into a new Scattering.
Warning: Wikipedia contains spoilers
It is thousands of years since the death of the God Emperor. As he prophesised after he went into the sands, sandworms arose, Dune was created anew on Arrakis, and spice eventually flowed again. But in the meantime the Empire fell into chaos and confusion. A hugely complex economic system built on spice collapsed, and with it much of civilization. It caused the famine times, and millions upon millions left known space in a great Scattering, in hope of better things.
The planets of the old empire have now recovered, and a new civilization has risen to take its place. There is no longer one dominant power, instead in this civilization power is shared between three main powers - the Ixians(the builders of no-ships capable of piloting between the stars), the Bene Tlexiau(who have learned to manufacture spice with their axotl tanks), and the Bene Gesserit(with their more subtle powers.) Lesser powers are the Spacing Guild and the Fish Speaker council.
However circumstances are about to change, new forces are beginning to make their presence felt in old worlds. People from the scattering are returning with their own peculiar powers, secrets and agendas. The most powerful of these forces are the Honoured Matres, who are a kind of twisted Bene Gesserit, an order of woman who take power via bodies bred and trained for two purposes: the sexual control of men and combat.
Things are brought to the boil by something new arising on Arrakis. One of the God Emperor's prophecies has come to pass. The sandrider he prophesed has been born. A girl called Sheenea has been discovered who can control the giant worms of Arrakis. The priesthood on Arrakis have accepted her as holy, and the Bene Gesserit watch her development with serious interest.
The Bene Gesserit have long been waiting for this to occur. They have been buying Duncan Idaho gholas generation after generation from the Tleilaxu, in anticipation of the prophesised sandrider, with the intention of using an Idaho ghola to gain control of this sandrider, and thus regain control of the religious forces of mankind. Unlike the multiple Idaho's that the God Emperor used in his service, the Bene Gesserit have subtlely been altering the gholas to bring their physical reflexes up to modern standards.
Upon the discovery of the sandrider Taraza (the Mother Superior and leader of the Bene Gesserit) brings Teg, the greatest ever general and leader the Bene Gesserit have ever produced, reluctantly out of retirement and details him to guard the new Idaho. This is not some minor task, since the previous eleven Idaho gholas have all been assassinated upon reaching reached adulthood. She also meets with Reverand Mother Odrade and details her to take command of the Bene Gesserit station on Rakis. Odrade is considered something of a loose cannon in the Bene Gesserit, people are suspicious of the limited prescience, that can detect threats to the sisterhood, which she possesses as a consequence of her Atreides genes; and the fact that she does not obey normal Bene Gesserit prohibitions about showing emotion. But she is supremely talented and most suited to Taraza's needs.
The novel begin on Gammu(previously known as Giedi Prime) where the Bene Gesserit are bringing up a new Duncan Idaho ghola. Lucilla, a young Bene Gesserit has been sent by Taraza to teach this ghola and bind him to loyalty to the Sisterhood. Lucilla's task is made even more difficult by internal divisions within the Bene Gesserit based on this issue. The Bene Gesserit are fiercely divided on the issue of the Duncan Idaho gholas, a strong minority believes that they are dangerous to the Bene Gesserit, and owing to the Byzantine nature of Sisterhood politics, they have placed one of their leaders, Schwagyanu, in charge of the project. So, Lucilla has the further agenda of repairing any damage created Schwagyanu, who has been subtlely encouraging its failure, and even protecting Idaho from Schwaganayu if it should prove necessary.
In fact Duncan Idaho has been damaged by Schwagyanu quite severely. He hates the Bene Gesserit, and only hopes to escape their control of his life. He is extremely precocious and has already divined the fact he is a ghola.
The action shifts to the Bene Tleilaxu meeting in council. In turns out that the Bene Tleilaxu are secretly and intensely religious organization, who have long nursed dreams of hegemony of human space, and the imposition of their religion. They are currently discussing the so called Atreides Manifesto, a document that undermines all the religions in known space, except the Tleilaxu. So, they decide to treat it as a gift from God and spread it far and wide.
After this meeting Waff goes to secretly meet some Honoured Matres. The Honoured Matres decide to 'mark' him and take over the Bene Tleilaxu, but they underestimate the little man, and with the aid of a face dancer disguised as an Honoured Matre they take over the ship and kill all the Honoured Matres. The face dancer reports that the Honoured Matres have similar skills to the Bene Gesserit, without Other Memory, but greater sexual and fighting skills. Waff fears that the Honoured Matres and Reverand Mothers might make common cause.
Meanwhile Duncan Idaho blossoms under the training of Lucilla and Teg. Schwaganayu has used all her wiles to seduce Lucilla to her side but is coming to realize that she has much underestimated Lucilla.
Meanwhile the sandrider Sheenea has been growing up among the priesthood. Her adolescence has been strange to say the least. The priesthood believe her to be holy and obey every order she gives them, though they haven't precisely decided what her role should be, and what she will become. Surprisingly she has not be too spoiled by this experience, and because there have been no constraints on her curiousity, her mind has flowed freely and well. The Bene Gesserit have also attached their own spy to her entourage, and ensure her education proceeds in the right way.
The priesthood is in turmoil on Arrakis. Sheenea is approaching adulthood, and her actions and commands are putting the priesthood under increasing pressure. She persists in calling the worms Shaitan, and has banned the priesthood from certain punishments, which the priesthood have had to replace with alternative ones. All this has made Sheenea widely popular among the people, and her religious mantle has spread off world as the Bene Gesserit expected. The priesthood are split into two factions led by Tuek (the High Priest) and Stiros (leader of the conservatives).
Meanwhile the Mother Superior is captured and held hostage by the Honoured Matres. The Honoured Matres fake a message from her to lure Miles Teg to the ship, and so gain control of the ghola project, but Miles Teg manages to turn tables on them, rescue the Mother Superior and her party as he learns the Mother Superior had planned. Odrade is in Taraza's party, and she and Teg talk on Taraza's orders; it turns out that Odrade is one of Miles Tegs many daughters, and that it is she that wrote the Atreides Manifesto.
Meanwhile on Arrakis things have been happening. An attack was made on Sheenea, which was only prevented by the intervention of the Bene Gesserit, who take unofficial control of the Priesthood and Arrakis, and thus the teaching and guarding of Sheenea. Odrade, personally selected by Taraza, is new leader of the Arrakis station, and she takes Sheenea under her wing, and starts training her to be Bene Gesserit.
At about the same time an attempt is made on the life of Duncan Idaho, but Teg is able to defeat it. But realizing he can no longer protect his charge anymore at the Bene Gesserit keep flees with Duncan and Lucilla into the countryside. He doesn't flee without plan, his aide-de-camp Patrin was born on Gammu and knows the secret existence of forgotten Harkonnen no globe which is thousands of years old. He tells Teg where it is and then covers their escape with a decoy, and kills himself so no-one can get the truth out of him.
Taraza meets Waff. Taraza goes into the meeting full of suppositon. The Bene Gesserit have re-evaluated their records and have finally asked themselves the right questions. They have come to recognise that all they know about the Bene Tleilaxu is what they Tleilaxu have wanted them to know. They suspect that the Tleilaxu have been using ghola's among their leaders but aren't even sure of that. Taraza gambles and blackmails Waff with the knowledge that the Bene Tlelaxu have killed Honoured Matres, a knowledge she only had fully confirmed when she saw Waff's reaction. Waff is forced to tell her what he knows about the Honoured Matres and pressed on the issue of Duncan Idaho admits that the Bene Tleilaxu have included their own agenda within him, but insists it does not clash with their contract with the Bene Gesserit. As the meeting draws to a close, she manages by accident to divine that Waff is a secret Zensunni, which finally gives the Bene Gesserit a lever to understand their ancient competitor, and she arranges to meet Waff again on Dune.
In the Harkonnen no globe Teg uses the new method the Bene Gesserit have developed to awaken gholas. Teg is facially the spitting image of Duke Leto Atredies, Paul's Maud'dib's father.) and uses this resemblance to awaken Duncan Idahos memories. He does this before Lucilla can imprint Duncan and thus tie him to the Sisterhood. Lucilla naturally is not gratified with this, and is unable to use her wiles to imprint Duncan afterward, because the now awoken Idaho is aware of her agenda, and tells her that if she tries it, he will attempt to kill her. Stalemate!
Waff meets Odrade on Arrakis. In a meeting with Tuej and Odrade, he panics and tries to assassinate them both, he succeeds in killing the unsuspecting Tuek, but Odrade is too clever for him; she turns the tables on him, and sets her own mark on the future of the Rakian priesthood. They install a face dancer as a replacement Tuek, because the alternatives would be too inconvenient.
In the meantime Taraza, via Teg's finest pupil Burzmali - has been searching for Teg, Lucilla and Duncan, but he has had as little success has anyone else these few months. But finally Burzmali in a flash of inspiration realizes where Teg must be, and establishes contact with Teg and arranges to bring them to safety. However, these preparations have been watched and when Teg and companions try to leave they are ambushed. Teg is captured guarding their escape, but though Lucilla and Duncan manage to escape they are still trapped in the gravity well.
Odrade decides it would be a good idea to put Waff under pressure and so she arranges a ride into the desert with Sheenea. The giant worm accepts them as passengers and then goes on a mad ride through the desert to Sietch Tabr, where Odrade finds a secret Spice hoard and a message sent down through time from the God Emperor.
Odrade takes it upon herself to offer full alliance with the Bene Tleilaxu, in the face of the onslaught of forces out of the Scattering. The cement for this alliance is that Odrade pretends that the Sisterhood are also secret followers of the Prophet. This causes consternation in the Bene Gesserit. Some call for Odrade to be assassinated. Taraza worries over this and then decides to go to Arrakis to decide whether to follow Odrade's course, or to kill her.
Teg is interrogated, indeed tortured, but under the pressure of the experience, discovers new abilities in the Atredies heritage, and is able to speed up his physical system to lightening speeds, and so is able to escape his bonds and kill everyone imprisoning him. The cost of this is that after such a speed up his body, needs huge amounts of food to replace the energy loss.
Meanwhile on Arrakis, Taraza has come for her inspection. She is worried that Odrade may need to be killed, but on arrival realizes that Odrade has seen her real plan and is merely following it in her own creative way. Taraza seeks the destruction of Dune, because she believes the dreams of the worms of Rakis still bind humankind in a particular course. She wishes to free humanity to follow its own possibilities. Obvously with the destruction of Rakis, the Bene Gesserit would be totally dependant on the Tleilaxu for the Spice they utterly need, so alliance with the Tleilaxu would ensure their supply. Taraza evaluates Sheenea and is impressed with what she sees, and this raises the possibility of the Bene Gesserit following a secondary plan of seeding other planets with worms transported by the sandrider. In an interview with Taraza Waff discovers he cannot control his Tuek face dancer, its copying is so perfect it has forgotten it is actually a face dancer, Taraza used the moment to confirm her alliance with the Bene Tleilaxu.
By this time Lucilla and Burzmali arrive at a Bene Gesserit safe house to discover it has been taken over by Honoured Matres, luckily however the young Honoured Matre mistakes Lucilla for another Honoured Matre, and accepts as an observer. She is just about to seduce Duncan Idaho. However, she starts the seduction procedure, and hidden Tlexiau conditioning kicks into action and he responds with an equal technique, and they mutually mark each other. Murbella finds herself unable to kill Duncan, and tells Lucilla to kill him, Lucilla taking advantage of Murbella's post coital exhaustion puts her unconscious.
The Honoured Matres finally attack Arrakis. Taraza is killed with the first attack. Odrade has time to merge minds with her, and become temporary leader of the Bene Gesserit, before escaping with Sheenea into the desert on a worm.
Eluding capture for a while Teg finally goes to a supposed safe house, only to discover that it had been taken over by the Honoured Matre's. Meeting them in person Teg is disgusted by their corruption and complete lack of human decency. The Honoured Matre's have decided that he could be very valuable to them and decide to 'mark' him, Teg waits for the chosen Honoured Matre to come to collect him, and then unleashes himself with his new physical abilities. This time the complex is too big for him to kill all the occupants so he just escapes.
Teg realizing all his Bene Gesserit links are compromised seeks his own allies. He finds a groups of ex-soldiers who have formed a resistance group to the Honoured Matre's. He brings them together and attacks a no-ship, and captures it. He locates Duncan and Lucilla, and with the captured Honoured Matre, takes them to Arrakis.
Teg arrives at this time and with his new vision finds Odrade and Sheenea and their giant worm, loads them all up in his no-ship, and then leads his troops out on a last suicidal defence of Arrakis, designed to attract the rage of the Honoured Matre's and make them destroy Arrakis and all the giant worms. This happens and Tarazas plan is fulfilled. The giant worms are destroyed bar the one giant worm the Bene Gesserit escape with. They let it loose in the desert of Chapter House,in the hope of turning it into a new Dune. Taraza camp is proved right, the God Emperor did wish to freed from his existence, and he did not prevent them destroying Dune. As we leave the book Odrade is the precarious temporary leader of the Bene Gesserit, by virtue of inheriting Taraza's memories and being at the right place at the right time.
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