(10138-10191 ) The man who would m time become Mentat-Assassin for the Smdar-Baron Vladimir Harkonnen, and nval him in evil, was born on Gwandah, a small planet well off the main spaceways According to fragmentary Tleilaxu records, Piter's mother was Thra, a daughter of the powerful Olman clan A sickly woman who nevertheless appears to have lived to a considerable old age, Thra doted on her only son and seemingly de&ed him nothing Of Piter's father, we know next to nothing In the only note we have on the senior de Vnes, his name is partially obliterated, the only letters legible are "ibb, ' but whether they constitute the beginning or end of his name is difficult to say We do know from evidence in the Tleilaxu Records that Piter's father, in some financial difficulty sold the child to the Tleilaxu for then- mentat experiments In the normal course of his training, Piter learned to absorb sense impressions and data, then work the material- add, extrapolate calculate, analyze-to come up with second approximation answers or, ideally, straight-line computations-to become, literally, a 'human computer ' Listening to students tales, Piter chafed at being stranded in, to his mind, the backwater of the universe He had long since decided to set out, when the wind was nght, to raise the fortunes of Piter de Vnes He burned with impatience and ambition Hav mg no doubt about his capabilities, he saw immediately that the avenue of the mentat, if trod shrewdly, could lead to what he yearned for most power Tleilax, as one of the two or three planets that did not completely adhere to the dictums leveled against technology after the Butlenan Jihad, included a variety of questionable courses of training for mentals Always sensi tive to the demands of the marketplace the Tleilaxu could produce mentals superbly skilled in any specialty, including the so called "twisted" Mentat-Assassms who could kill efficientl) and without compunction When the Baron Harkonnen's order for a Mentat Assassin arrived, the Tleilaxu saw in the clever Piter an ideal candidat