e or reread her own memoirs, Arrakis and After, amid the lush plantings from even the most exotic of worlds or a young har ned acolyte curled up in one of the hand crafted, fur covered chairs reading the illus trated plays of Harq al Harba And there is no doubt that the contents of the General Collection as distinct from the restricted holdings of the special collections of the Chronicles of the Chapter House were se lected for their combination of the inspirational and the entertaining with the instructional Featured were narrative highlights of the over 2,300 years of the Missionana Protecnva including those of Attus Marge Conna the first of the Sisterhood to make contact witii the Fremen Selected editions of the Orange Catholic Bible, along with other selections from the richer hoard of religious writings m the vaults, flanked the mam, crystal faced display case Opposite in an ornate case of jade-pink petrified elacca made supposedly from the desk of Baron Vladimir Harkonncn, were a set of the Master Breeding Records their cryptic codings reflecting over eleven hundred years of futile pursuit of the Kwisatz Haderach Missing from the General Collec tion set were the volumes depicting the cata strophic failures of Paul Muad'Dib and Feyd Rautha Harkonnen and the highly sensitive and secret Mating Index Descending into the restricted and ancient catacombs, die visitor finds the scene has changed little The austere rows of identical BENE OESSERIT LIBRARY 129 BENE OESSERIT LIBRARY plasteel carrels, each with its own solido projector (many now inoperable), embody a spirit of austere scholarship The numerous vaults each sealed with locks of varying degrees of antiquity, point to extreme secrecy The entry desk is thought to have been supervised by only the most adept Reverend Mothers and this compulsory duty partially explains the mysterious absences thai have been typical of the highest of die order since its beginning The sealed vaults are divided into three collections the Xenocultural Col lection, the complete Master Breeding Records and the Mating Index, and the Reference Collection and the Bene Gessent histories and records Only this last section is specif! cally named the Chronicles of the Chapter House, a title that has been mistakenly ap plied to the entire complex The Xenocultural Collection astonished scholars with the extent of its contents and the startling smugness of the Bene Gessent definition of what constituted "ahen * material While it is not surprising to find complete copies of the original Frcmen Dunebuk (including one of the few remaining copies of tiie forbidden nte of human sacrifice to Shai-Hulud), the Tleilaxu, Godbuk, The Zensunm Codex The Meni&t Handbook, The Spacing Guild Manual, Thf Dune Gospels and the Qizarate Creed here-it is shocking to find that the Bene Gessent also classified the Orange Catholic Bible (O C B ) and the histories of Houses Major and Minor, including the Atreides, under tfee xeno- he