Brian Herbert - Sandworms of Dune

SANDWORMS OF
DUNE

THE DUNE SERIES

BY FRANK HERBERT

Dune
Dune Messiah
Children of Dune
God Emperor of Dune
Heretics of Dune
Chapterhouse: Dune

BY FRANK HERBERT, BRIAN HERBERT,
AND KEVIN J. ANDERSON

The Road to Dune (includes the original short novel Spice Planet)

BY BRIAN HERBERT AND KEVIN J. ANDERSON

Dune: House Atreides
Dune: House Harkonnen
Dune: House Corrino

Dune: The Butlerian Jihad
Dune: The Machine Crusade
Dune: The Battle of Corrin

Hunters of Dune
Sandworms of Dune
Paul of Dune (forthcoming)

BY BRIAN HERBERT

Dreamer of Dune

(biography of Frank Herbert)

Brian Herbert
and
Kevin J. Anderson

Based on an outline by Frank Herbert

A TOM DOHERTY ASSOCIATES BOOK
NEW YORK

This is a work of fiction. All of the characters, organizations, and events portrayed in this novel are either products of the authors imaginations or are used fictitiously.

SANDWORMS OF DUNE

Copyright 2007 by Herbert Properties LLC

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book, or portions thereof, in any form.

A Tor Book
Published by Tom Doherty Associates, LLC
175 Fifth Avenue
New York, NY 10010

www.tor.com

www.dunenovels.com

Tor is a registered trademark of Tom Doherty Associates, LLC.

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Herbert, Brian.

Sandworms of Dune / Brian Herbert and Kevin J. Anderson.1st ed.
p. cm.

A Tom Doherty Associates Book.

ISBN-13: 978-0-7653-1293-8

ISBN-10: 0-7653-1293-X

1. Dune (Imaginary place)Fiction. 2. Life on other planetsFiction. 3. RobotsFiction. I. Anderson, Kevin J., 1962 II. Title.

PS3558.E617S26 2007

813'.54dc22

2006102742

First Edition: August 2007

Printed in the United States of America

0 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

We can never overstate the appreciation we owe to the genius
who created this incredible series. Once again, this book is for
Frank Herbert, a man of wondrous and important ideas, who has
been our mentor as we continue to write new stories in his
fantastic Dune universe. Sandworms of Dune is the chronological
grand finale that he envisioned, and we are pleased to finally
bring it to his millions of loyal fans.

As with all of our previous Dune novels, we have depended on the efforts of a great many people to make the manuscript as good as possible. We would like to thank Pat LoBrutto, Tom Doherty, and Paul Stevens at Tor Books; Carolyn Caughey at Hodder & Stoughton; Catherine Sidor, Louis Moesta, and Diane Jones at WordFire, Inc; Penny Merritt, Kim Herbert, and Byron Merritt at Herbert Properties LLC; and Mike Anderson at the dunenovels.com Web site, as well as Dr. Attila Torkos, who worked on fact-checking and consistency.

In addition, we have had many supporters of the new Dune novels, including John Silbersack, Robert Gottlieb, and Claire Roberts at Trident Media Group; Richard Rubinstein, Mike Messina, John Harrison, and Emily Austin-Bruns at New Amsterdam Entertainment; Ron Merritt, David Merritt, Julie Herbert, Robert Merritt, Margaux Herbert, and Theresa Shackelford at Herbert Properties LLC.

And as always, these books would not exist without the unending help and support from our wives, Janet Herbert and Rebecca Moesta Anderson.

Soon after the Honored Matres careened into the Old Empire, the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood learned to hate and fear them. The intruders used their terrible Obliterator weapons to destroy Bene Gesserit and Tleilaxu planets, Richese with its vast industries and weapon shops, even Rakis itself.

But in order to survive the even greater Enemy that pursued them, the Honored Matres desperately needed knowledge that only the Sisterhood possessed. To obtain it, they struck like angry vipers, lashing out with extreme violence.

After the Battle of Junction, the two opposing groups were forcibly united into a New Sisterhood, but the factions continued to wrestle for control and dominance. Such a waste of time, talent, and blood! The real threat came from outside, but we continued to fight the wrong enemy.

MOTHER COMMANDER MURBELLA ,
address to the New Sisterhood

Two people drift in a lifeboat on an uncharted sea. One says, There! I see an island. Our best chance is to go ashore, build a shelter, and await rescue. The other says, No, we must go farther out to sea and hope to find the shipping lanes. That is our best chance. Unable to agree, the two fight, the lifeboat capsizes, and they drown.

This is the nature of humanity. Even if only two people are left in the entire universe, they will come to represent opposing factions.

The Bene Gesserit Acolytes Handbook

In re-creating particular gholas, we reweave the fabric of history. Once more, Paul MuadDib walks among us, with his beloved Chani, his mother the Lady Jessica, and his son Leto II, the God Emperor of Dune. The presence of Suk doctor Wellington Yueh, whose treachery brought a great house to its knees, is at once disturbing and comforting. Also with us are the warrior-Mentat Thufir Hawat, the Fremen Naib Stilgar, and the great planetologist Liet-Kynes. Consider the possibilities!

Such genius constitutes a formidable army. We will need that brilliance, because we face an opponent more terrible than we ever imagined.

DUNCAN IDAHO ,
Memories of More Than a Mentat

I have waited and planned and built my strength for fifteen thousand years. I have evolved. It is time.

OMNIUS

SANDWORMS OF
DUNE

So many people I knew in the past are not yet reborn. I still miss them, even though I do not remember them. The axlotl tanks will soon remedy that.

LADY JESSICA ,
the ghola

A board the wandering no-ship Ithaca, Jessica witnessed the birth of her daughter, but only as an observer. Just fourteen years old, she and many others crowded the medical center, while two Bene Gesserit Suk doctors in the adjacent creche prepared to extract the tiny girl child from an axlotl tank.

Alia, one of the female doctors murmured.

This was not truly Jessicas daughter, but a ghola grown from preserved cells. None of the young gholas on the no-ship were themselves yet. They had regained none of their memories, none of their pasts.

Something tried to surface at the back of her mind, and though she worried at it like a loose tooth, Jessica could not remember the first time Alia had been born. In the archives, she had read and reread the legendary accounts generated by MuadDibs biographers. But she couldnt remember.

All she had were images from her studies: A dry and dusty sietch on Arrakis, surrounded by Fremen. Jessica and her son Paul had been on the run, taken in by the desert tribe. Duke Leto was dead, murdered by Harkonnens. Pregnant, Jessica had drunk the Water of Life, forever changing the fetus inside her. From the moment of her birth, the original Alia had been different from all other babies, filled with ancient wisdom and madness, able to tap into Other Memory without having gone through the Spice Agony. Abomination!