Dune

There were no words in the language, only a moving, dancing adaptation to a moving, dancing universe. You could only speak the language, not translate it. To know the meaning you had to go through the experience and even then the meaning changed before your eyes. “Noble purpose” was, after all, an untranslatable experience. But when she looked down at the rough, heat-immune hide of that worm from the Rakian desert, Odrade knew what she saw: the visible evidence of noble purpose.

Softly, she called down to him: “Hey! Old worm! Was this your design?”

There was no answer but then she had not really expected an answer.

ACE

Published by Berkley

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Copyright © 1985 by Herbert Properties LLC

“Introduction” by Brian Herbert copyright © 2009 by DreamStar, Inc.

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Ebook ISBN: 9781440619236

G. P. Putnam’s Sons hardcover edition / April 1985

Berkley trade paperback edition / October 1986

Ace mass-market edition / July 1987

Ace hardcover edition / August 2009

Ace premium edition / June 2019

Cover design and illustration by Jim Tierney

This is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents either are the product of the author’s imagination or are used fictitiously, and any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, business establishments, events, or locales is entirely coincidental.

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CONTENTS

Title Page

Copyright

Introduction

Chapter 1

Chapter 2

Chapter 3

Chapter 4

Chapter 5

Chapter 6

Chapter 7

Chapter 8

Chapter 9

Chapter 10

Chapter 11

Chapter 12

Chapter 13

Chapter 14

Chapter 15

Chapter 16

Chapter 17

Chapter 18

Chapter 19

Chapter 20

Chapter 21

Chapter 22

Chapter 23

Chapter 24

Chapter 25

Chapter 26

Chapter 27

Chapter 28

Chapter 29

Chapter 30

Chapter 31

Chapter 32

Chapter 33

Chapter 34

Chapter 35

Chapter 36

Chapter 37

Chapter 38

Chapter 39

Chapter 40

Chapter 41

Chapter 42

Chapter 43

Chapter 44

Chapter 45

Chapter 46

Chapter 47

Chapter 48

Dedication

About the Author

INTRODUCTION BY BRIAN HERBERT

Chapterhouse: Dune is set thousands of years in mankind’s future, when the known universe is ruled by women. It is a fascinating milieu, populated by gholas grown from dead human cells, as well as shape-shifting Face Dancers, half-human Futars, cloned humans, and mutant, conspiratorial Guild Navigators. There are immense Heighliners that fold space to traverse vast distances in the blink of an eye, along with nearly invisible no-ships and no-chambers that contain mysterious machinery.

As the novel opens, the planet Dune has already been destroyed by Honored Matres, powerful, enigmatic women who emerged from the Scattering that the God Emperor set into motion long ago in order to spread humankind across uncounted star systems. On planet Chapterhouse, the Bene Gesserit Sisterhood has a giant sandworm, obtained surreptitiously, that is metamorphosing into sandtrout. Thus the Sisters have initiated a desertification process that could result in a new Dune, and a new source of the priceless spice melange, a finite resource that they need and hope to control . . .

This is the sixth novel in Frank Herbert’s classic, wildly popular science fiction series, and the last story in the highly imaginative Dune universe that he wrote. He typed much of the novel at his home in Hawaii, where he tended to the serious medical needs of my mother, Beverly Herbert. A professional writer herself, she helped with the plotting of the book and provided him with the title before she passed away in 1984. My father did not complete the writing task, however, until after her death, when he returned to Washington State.

It is impossible for me to read Chapterhouse: Dune, or to even think about it, without experiencing powerful reminders of my mother and the relationship she had with my father for almost four decades. An extraordinary woman, she was the basis of the literary character Lady Jessica in the first three novels of the Dune series, and the source of many of the aphorisms that are so familiar to Dune fans. The strong presence of women later in the epic saga—particularly in the fifth and sixth novels—stemmed from her as well.