considered and finally decided on, another course for her mate to take In spite of revulsion at the thought of Paul s making the Princess Irulan his wrfe-m-fact, dam suggested that he allow Irulan to have her chance at producing a child Although angry and suspicious that Irulan might have used Chani to advance her schemes for power, the emperor was quickly convinced that his con cubme wished only to secure the throne for a line of Atreides Emperors and saw Irulan as the logical source for progeny if their childless state continued * Paul refused to consider the idea, turning Cham's arguments in its favor aside Irulan, he told her, was too dangerous, her position, should she bear his child, would be too secure (This was before the Princess's com plicity in the plot to overthrow him-proof, certainly, of his beliefs concerning her-was known) Only Chani would provide the heir he wanted, and he was willing to wait for their child Convinced that die Imperial physicians could be of no further help, Cham reverted to the traditions of her people She visited the deserts edge and prayed to Shai-Hulud for a child She consulted older women from among the tribes, listened to their advice, and embarked OB a special diet, one supposed to promote fertflity The ingredients she needed were brought 10 her personally by a trusted friend from Si etch Tabr, "kid Cham prepared the meals herself, not allowing anyone else to touch the food The diet worked, Cham was pregnant with in weeks of abandoning her regular food However, during her first session with the doctors following the conception, traces of a potent contraceptive drug, now being cleared from her system by the new regimen, were found Long-term ingestion of the contraceptive had harmed Cham, primarily by interaction with the melange with which her body was saturated From the moment the fetuses occu pied her womb, Cham s metabolism had sped up to a terrifying rate Her physicians told her that she would have to eat three or four times the food she would ordinarily consume along with increasingly larger doses of the spice Nine months was far longer than this pregnancy would last assuming that she could survive, Cham's children would be born in less than six months No mental was needed to see who had tnost to gam from Cham's barrenness, or who, residing in another portion of the Keep, had the best opportunities to slip the drug into the Royal Concubine's food Had her Usul not asked her to spare Irulan Cham would not have rested until she had found the Comno Princess's life with a crysknife blade But foregoing revenge did nothing to calm the hatred Cham felt toward the Royal Consort Most of the next half year fled quickly as a dream for Chain External problems-the advancement of the plot against the emperor Usul's blindness in trie wake of the stonebumer attack-persisted and could not be ignored Still everything affected her as from a distance having first to break through the self preoccupation