A Historical Sketch (Stoddard: Brujovia); Zhautu Kuuravwr, The Art of legal Murder (Grumman: Ttra); H"q al-Ada, House Atreides; A Historical Overview, tr, Zhaulya Muurazharai (Ubermanm Pmetrae); Landsraad-liupmal Committee on Conflict Containment, I he Assassin's Handbook, Lib. Coof. Temp. Series 88 ATREIDES, LADY ALIA (also "The Womb of Heaven," "The Accursed One," "Saint Aha-of-the-Kmfe"; 10191-10220). BIOGRAPHICAL DATA. Born in 10191, within a year of her parents' move from Caladan to Arrakis, the Lady Alia was the first of the Atreides pre-born. Her consciousness was permanently altered during the Water of Life ceremony which made her mother, the Lady Jessica, a Fremen Reverend Mother The desert folk did not know of Jessica's pregnancy, and so had no way of knowing that they were creating more than a new Reverend Mother when they fed Lady Jessica the '' illuminating poison''; the recently-widowed Lady knew the effect the raw Water of Life would have on her unborn daughter, but could not refuse the ceremony. The result was the creation of something Jessica's Bene Gessent superiors had long feared: a child born with ful! awareness and knowledge of her ancestral memories. The superstitious Fremen were affected by the child from the moment of her birth. After only a few moments of crying, the newborn looked around the birthing room as ATREIDBS, LADY ALIA 42 ATREIDES, LADY ALIA if taking in every detail with her already-focused eyes, and with a curious smile, drank the Water of Conception fed her by her godmother Harah. Some of the other women present at the birth were unnerved by this behavior and spread the word among their people that their new Reverend Mother had given birth to a child who would bear careful watching. The Bene Gesserit were not the only group in the Injperium with legends of Abomination, Alia's precocity in other matters did nothing to soothe the firemen's unease. By the time she could walk, only eight months after her birth, she was exercising their water discipline as thoroughly as any adult among them. Her access to Fremen memories, in addition to those of her own ancestors, meant she did not have to leant the discipline but simply implement what she already knew. Her first words to her godmother and narse were not the nonsense syllables the Fremen women would have expected from a baby, but a recognizable sentence: "I love you, Harah." But most unsettling was the child's habit of sitting atone at the edge of the desert, practicing adult Bene Gesserit exercises. Only the stature of her mother and brother among the tribes saved the child Alia from being put to the Test of Possession. The Fremen seldom used the ritual, for it evoked a feeling of communal guilt as no other action could; but the sight of a child behaving so much older than her known years was enough to make them consider it. In 10193, during the last engagements between the forces of Shaddam IV and Muad'Dib's Fremen, the two-year-old Alia permitted herself to be captured by the Emperor's Sardaukar rather than take responsibility for telling her brother that his son had been killed in the fighting.