BOOK THREE - CHAPTER FIVE
Always keep your opponent off balance - uncertainty makes one susceptable to suggestions that appear to restore order, and this hope causes carelessness. Use every tool at your disposal to attain your goals - everything from all-out terror and blackmail to a carefully dosed use of certain key words. Even a virtually undetectable mannerism or the way you dress can be highly effective. Offend your enemy when it's safe to do so. Causing changes in the distribution of power is a game, and, as is the case with every game, the goal is to increase pleasure - your own. Control of the distribution of pleasure and displeasure is the ultimate power.
-Siridar Baron Vladimir Harkonnen-
Inside the cocoon formed by the sandtrout, the baby ghola's body was changing, merging with the worm, the limbs and head developing at an increased rate. The Melange supply in the pen was quickly growing smaller as well, the substance being an integral fuel source for the drastic transformations.
Slowly but steadily, the past was opening up to him, both Other Memory and Ancestral Memory unfolding in his mind, giving him the access even his recent reawakening hadn't been able to give him, the ghola baby's brain giving him the neural potential needed to properly organise and store the inpouring knowledge.
He felt confident enough now to dare to look back, tracing history to its earliest stages, and beyond into prehistory. The events of the past millennia revealed themselves to him, how the discovery of the Spice had created a structure in which certain developments were unavoidable. He understood that the events that had taken place were supposed to have happened, all developments converging at this point in history, all processes leading to the same goal.
Does the Spice have a plan of its own?, he wondered. Does its power serve the purposes of a higher will or order?
Looking farther back, a pattern emerged, suggesting this was indeed the case. Soon, I will know the designer of this pattern. I will be the designer of the pattern!
The earliest stages of evolution flashed in front of his mind's eye, the most distant points to which he was permitted to see. The circle appeared again, and this strenghtened his resolve to remove himself from that damnable structure forever.
All the elements are in place now: my servant and the powers I helped unlock, my new body, my recaptured awareness ... I still need to find a way for him to unleash his full potential, but that is merely a matter of time.
A new sensation arose in his mind - an awareness of a new presence. Ah, the kindred spirit arrives!
The image was unclear - muddled by the limitations of his prescience. The presence carried with it the unknown beyond. However, this did not fill him with fear. My new existence - I cannot see there. For now ...
A dominant persona of his Ancestral Memory protested. Your plan is evil!
My plan is necessary!, he responded.
Your actions will make you worse than your great-grandfather. He was a glutton: power, young bodies, food - he devoured everything, but at least he knew he was evil. I know my actions were wrong - I had the power to stop the Jihad, and I didn't. I mourn for my ignorance and lack of willpower every day. Your Golden Path was even worse, but you understood its cruelty. What you're planning now transcends all that!
Of course it does! One final act of cruelty to end all cruelty. The universe will be a better place once I'm done.